Red Riding Hood
by KateRayearth
Summary: Since she was a child, Misty's heard the same words over and over: never step outside on a full moon night. She's fourteen when someone close to her inexplicably ignores that warning and her life is changed forever. (Pokeshipping AU)
1. Chapter 1

(A/N: Yes, it's another pokeshipping fairytale AU. I really like fairytales, in case you can't tell. This story was heavily inspired by the 2011 _Red Riding Hood_ movie with Amanda Seyfried, but I hope I've managed to give it my own twist as well. It's also another translation, I originally wrote it in Italian in 2012.

**WARNING** for death of secondary characters, and some blood and violence and general creepiness.)

**Red Riding Hood**

_"Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night_  
_may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright."_

**1.**

She's two years old the first time she's told about the danger. She won't remember, later, that this was the first time: they'll tell her over and over, every time the moon is round in the sky and often when it's not, too, and it will become one of those things you just know, you've known since forever, without questioning them.

Her papa takes her in his lap and opens the window. Only a crack, barely enough to see a small slice of the black night sky. "Can you see the moon?" he asks, and she nods: the moon is a perfect white circle against the black. "Look at it," he tells her. "See how round it is?"

He waits for her to nod again, then closes the window, so abruptly that Misty jumps a little. "You must never go out when the moon looks like that," he says. He takes her chin in his rough fingers to make her turn and looks at her in the eyes. "Never. Not even for a moment. Not even look out of the door, or the window. Do you understand?"

Confused, she shakes her head. "Why?" she wants to know.

"There are bad things out there, when the moon is round," he answers. Misty waits for a reassuring smile, a twitch of his lips under the thick blonde mustache, something to tell her that yes, there are bad things out there, but she has nothing to fear. But her papa doesn't smile. His face is tense and serious in the orange light from the fireplace, and it scares her a little. "It's all you need to know for now. Promise me you'll never go out when the moon looks like that."

"I promise," she whispers, shaken. He makes her promise again, then nods, apparently satisfied. He puts her down and ruffles her hair with his hand: "Go play with your sisters," he tells her. He's still not smiling, and for some reason that's what scares her the most. Because it's like he's scared too, and if her papa is scared, so tall and with hands so big that one of them could wrap around both of hers and still have some space left, it must mean that the things roaming about when the moon is round really are bad. That they could swallow a little thing like her whole, should they see her peering out of the window.

That night she'll have a nightmare, a vague dream of nameless and shapeless things with sharp teeth and claws trying to catch her. She'll wake up crying and screaming and her mama will run to hug her. As she'll walk up and down the room rocking her and trying to calm her she'll tell her husband: "You scared her". He'll shrug, and say something that will terrify Misty for years before she finally forgets about it: "Good".

She's told the same thing over and over, until she has no doubt that she should never step outside with a full moon. Sometimes she lies awake at night, eyes wide open in the dark, listening to her sleeping sisters' breathing or their whispers, and looks at the closed window with curiosity gnawing at her bones; but she never even goes as far as to push her blanket away and lay her feet on the wooden floor. "It'll be full soon," their father's been repeatng for the past few days, and when even that last small slice of moon finally took shape in the sky he locked the windows and said, "You remember what I always tell you about full moon nights, right?" and she or one of her sisters answered "that we must never go out". In the dark Misty listens to the wind howling around the house and thinks about her father's eyes, pleased but serious, and a shiver runs down her spine.

She's never told why she mustn't go out. When she asks, they answer that she shouldn't think about such things, and her father's frowning brow tells her it's better not to insist, but she hears some things anyway. People whisper worriedly around the village; they lower their voices and suddenly stop talking when she or some other kid walks by, but once in a while she catches a few words: they talk about an animal, a beast. Sometimes, when the moon disappears behind the horizon and the sun rises, there's screaming.

One morning, when she's eight years old, she hears screams coming from near the house. She recognizes the voice: it's a friend of her mother, and hearing it makes her blood run cold; but her sisters are asleep still, and no one is there to see her sneak out. She slips out of her bed and runs downstairs, bare-footed and still in her nightgown. It's cold, almost winter. The frost freezes her feet. There's a crowd near the pens, and Misty squeezes through it, pushing long heavy skirts out of her way. The thing they're all looking at, she finally sees it, is the carcass of a goat. Or a sheep, maybe, it's hard to tell. Clean white bones stick out of the flesh. On the frost-whitened ground the blood is bright red and frightening.

A hand seizes her arm, yanking her away. "Be thankful I saw you, and not your father," her mother says in an angry whisper, dragging her back home. "Never do anything like this again."

Later, she lies face down on her bed, pouting, her behind still hurting from the spanking. On the other side of the room Daisy, her older sister, brushes her blonde hair.

"Do you know what's out there at night?" Misty asks her. Daisy shrugs a little, without turning.

"Of course," she answers, like she asked if the sky is blue.

Misty props herself up on her hands. "What is it?" she wants to know.

Daisy keeps brushing her hair. She gathers it on a shoulder for a moment, then lets it fall back in a wheat-colored wave. "I shouldn't tell you," she says. "You're too young to know these things."

"I'm not too young," Misty protests. "Come on, tell me!"

Daisy sighs. She sets the brush down, after picking some hair away from it, then says: "A wolf".

"A wolf?" Misty repeats, puzzled. She's seen some wolves. Not up close, of course, because she knows they're dangerous, but she knows they live in the woods around the village. Sometimes she hears them howling at night. Once in a while the hunters bring one when they come back. She frowns, wondering why everyone would fear a wolf so much.

"Not a regular wolf, silly," Daisy says. "A werewolf."

She never heard that word before. "A what?"

"Werewolf," Daisy repeats. She turns, opening her eyes wide and lowering her voice: "One half man, the other half beast. When the moon is full the beast comes out. It's much bigger and much more ferocious than any normal wolf, it's got claws longer than your arms and teeth sharp as knives, and if it finds a living creature… yum! It tears it to pieces and devours it in a moment."

Misty jumps a little, drawing back without even realizing it. Daisy laughs at her reaction.

"I told you you're too young to talk about these things," she comments. "I bet you'll have nightmares tonight."

"I won't have nightmares," Misty retorts, but she thinks about the remains of the goat she saw this morning, the bones still red with blood, and she's not all that sure. "Is that true? What you said?"

"Of course it's true," Daisy says. "Want to see for yourself? Wait outside on the next full moon and you will. And it'll be the last thing you see."

She shudders. "You're making it up to scare me," she says, a little unsure.

Daisy shrugs and turns back. "Oh, if you think so. I'm sure on the next full moon the wolf will be happy to find a little girl instead of some meager little sheep."

—-

"Do you know about the wolf?"

Ash frowns, looking at the river. They met there for the first time: she was playing on the riverbank when she was maybe four or five while her mother washed some old sheets when all of a sudden she heard a wet _thump_, and she looked up just in time to see a black haired boy fall face first in the shallow water. She remembers laughing as he scrambled to sit, covered in mud and shaking water out of his hair like a wet puppy, and she remembers him shooting her the most offended look she'd ever seen.

"What wolf?"

"My sister told me," Misty explains. She sits next to him by the water, careful to adjust her skirt not to get dirt in it. "It comes out when there's a full moon. It's not a normal wolf, it's half wolf and half man, and if it finds you it tears you to pieces and eats you."

"And you believe her?" Ash asks. He piled a few pebbles next to himself, white and water-smooth. He throws one in the river, trying to make it bounce on the surface, but it's not a good throw: it bounces only once, and just barely, before sinking to the bottom.

"You're no good," she scoffs. "Give me that". She leans over to grab one of the pebbles and throws it, and together they watch it bounce three times before disappearing.

Misty draws her knees closer to her chest. "I don't know if I believe her," she says. "But there's something. I'm sure. Want to know something?"

"What?" he asks. He turns to look at her. He's got a faded-purple bruise on his cheek, yesterday he told her he fell.

"This morning I heard someone screaming," she tells him. She bites her lip a little, hesitating. "There was no one, so I went out to look."

"Are you crazy?" Ash interrupts her. "It could've been dangerous!"

"There were a lot of people around, and it was day already, the moon was gone," she retorts. "It wasn't dangerous. Shut up and listen. I went out and there were all these people looking at something, so I squeezed in to see, and they were all looking at a dead goat. But not just dead, it was all torn to pieces. There was blood everywhere and the bones sticking out."

She shivers a little thinking about it, and hugs her knees tighter. Ash looks at her without saying anything.

"A normal animal wouldn't have done a mess like that," she finishes.

"And you think it was this half-man wolf?" Ash wants to know. Misty shrugs.

"I don't know. But it was _something_."

Ash thinks about it, turning back to the river with his brow in a frown. She waits a couple moments, then adds: "Don't you ever want to find out what's out there? At night, I mean… don't you ever think about opening a window, or the door, even just for a minute, and looking out?"

"I did it once," Ash answers. Misty was not expecting it. She's taken aback for a moment, then opens her eyes wide.

"Are you kidding?"

He shakes his head. "Uh-uh. Most of the time I sleep and don't think about it at all, but that time I couldn't sleep and then I heard this… something like a growl, right next to the window. So I got out of bed and opened it a tiny bit. I was more scared to wake my father than of anything that could be out there, really."

"Did you see something?" she wants to know. Ash shrugs a little. He takes a pebble from the pile and holds it in his hand.

"I don't know, it was dark."

"You must have seen something!" she insists.

"I did, but I don't know what." Ash says. "It just… looked like there was something black, and big, but maybe I'm wrong because it was dark and it was just a shadow, but… for a moment I thought it was looking right at me. I don't know why, I couldn't see any eyes or anything, I just had this feeling, y'know? And I slammed the window shut. I forgot I was trying to not make noise. The next morning my father said he heard me closing it and he was furious."

Misty stares at him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He shrugs again. "I thought you'd get scared—_ouch!_" he cries out, as her hand slams against the back of his head.

"I'm not a wimp," she states. She crosses her arms, trying to hold a grudge, but only manages to for a minute. "Do you think it was the wolf?"

"Maybe," Ash says. He throws the pebble in the river. This time it doesn't bounce at all, it just sinks.

"You're no good," Misty repeats.

"I'm good, you're distracting me," he retorts. He tries again. The pebble plunges in the water one more time.

"That's not how you do it!" she insists. "Watch this."

She grabs another of his pebbles and again she manages to get it to draw three arches on the surface of the river, and hint at a fourth, too, a moment before sinking. Ash puffs his cheeks, pouting.

"See," she gloats.

He sighs, rolling his eyes. "I have to go home, anyway," he says. "I have to help my father with the wood, he'll get mad if I'm late."

He stands and scatters the pebbles with his foot. "You coming?" he asks.

"Mh", she nods. She pulls herself up, brushing dirt away from her dress.

As they walk back to the village for a moment she thinks of taking his hand, not quite knowing why. Maybe it's because she's thinking about the wolf, that could have oh-so-easily jumped inside his window and eaten him, if Daisy's story is true. But she thinks he'd pull back, puzzled or embarrassed; she hides hers in the creases of her skirt.

—-

"Where have you been?" her mother asks, when she walks in.

"I was down at the river with Ash," Misty answers. She closes the door behind her back, leaning on it for a moment.

Her mother sighs slightly. She's busying herself around something, her dark red hair in a long braid falling between her shoulder blades. "You know I don't like it too much, you spending all this time alone with him, right?" she reminds her. "His father is a bad lot. Come here."

"But Ash isn't," she retorts, walking closer.

Her mother turns to her. She's holding a bundle of red fabric; on the table next to her are thread reels and red clippings. She lays the fabric on her shoulders, draping it with care.

"It'll be winter soon," she says. The cape, warm and heavy, falls down to her calves. Her mother observes the length, adjusts it a little around her. She gathers her hair in her hand and pulls the hood up. She looks at her for a few moments, silent, then lays her hands on her face.

"You know I love you very much, right?" she asks, and Misty nods without hesitation.

"If something happened to you, it would kill me," her mother says. "Try not to make me worry anymore, can you do that?"

Misty looks down. "I'm sorry 'bout this morning," she whispers. She bites her lip. "But… I like spending time with Ash."

Her mother sighs again. "Stay away from his father," she tells her. "Believe me, he's not a good man."

"Why?" Misty wants to know. Her mother shakes her head a bit.

"You don't need to know that," she says. Misty thinks she does, but doesn't say it out loud. "Promise me you'll stay away from him."

"I promise," she replies. Her mother smiles, but a shadow clouds her eyes and for a moments her face looks older, the lines around her mouth darker, her skin grey in the light from the fireplace. She lays a kiss on her forehead, then takes the cape back.

"Here, I need to finish it. It'll be good for many winters."

The kitchen smells of bread and spices. Misty sits in front of the fire, trying to shake off the cold of the autumn nearing its end that crept inside her clothes. She's holding one of Ash's pebbles in her hand, she picked it up as she stood. She closes her fingers around it, clutching it against her palm.

—-

One day in December she finds him sitting on the stone steps in front of his house with a rag pressed to his nose. The rag is bloody, and Ash keeps his head tilted back. Misty runs to him, stumbling a little because of the fresh snow and her too-long cape, and sits next to him abandoning the basket of vegetables she bought at the market.

"What happened?"

Ash removes the rag from his face to answer, but his nose is still bleeding and he has to put it back. "I hit my face against the wood pile," he mumbles through the cloth. "I was running and I tripped."

Misty arches one eyebrow. "What a clod," she comments, then leans over. "Here, let me see."

She takes his hands to get them away from his face and he fights a little and then lets her, reluctant. His nose is swollen and red, almost purple, but it doesn't look broken. "Does it hurt?" she asks, and he shrugs and presses the rag against it again.

"No," he replies. He looks down and some blood drips on the snow, between his knees.

"Liar," she retorts. Ash doesn't say anything, and suddenly she realizes he's shivering. He's sitting on the steps wearing only a shirt, snowflakes stuck in his hair.

"Why don't you go back inside?" she asks, frowning. "You'll get cold out here."

Ash shakes his head. He does it quickly, before she's even done saying "you'll get cold", but it takes him a while longer to answer. "My father… got mad, because I'm always distracted and don't watch my steps," he tells her hesitating a little, the cloth smothering his voice. "Better if I stay here until he cools off."

"But he won't want you to catch a pneumonia sitting in the snow," she insists. He shakes his head again.

"I'm fine," he says. He dares to take the rag off again, realizes he's still bleeding and grumbles a "damn it" pressing it back on. Misty watches him tremble, a little puzzled. Then sighs and sits closer, covering his shoulders with a corner of her red cape.

Ash looks at her. "Go away, you'll get blood stains on your dress," he says. She shrugs.

"Doesn't matter. I don't want you to die of pneumonia."

"I'm not dying of pneumonia!" Ash retorts. He does nothing to draw back, though, and curls up a little, pulling his knees closer to his chest.

Misty says nothing. The sky is white; the snow is thickening. Flakes fall on her shoes and Ash's, and on her basket, all tilted to one side and about to tip over. She tries to hook it up with her foot and only manages to push it farther. She puffs her cheeks, but doesn't stand to retrieve it.

Against her shoulder Ash is still trembling a little. She wraps her cape around him a little tighter. In a pocket her mother sewed on the inside she still has his pebble, she feels it press against her side when she moves and lays one hand on it, tracing the round shape through the fabric.

"How romantic."

She looks up. Gary is staring at them, hands on his hips and his lips curled in a smirk.

She glares back. "Very funny," she retorts.

Gary looks at Ash. "What happened?" he asks, his voice more taunting than worried. "Someone noticed how pathetic your face looks and tried to fix it?"

Rather than just replying that he fell and hit his face on the woodpile like he just did, Ash looks down and grumbles "Shut up, Gary". Misty looks at him puzzled for a moment, then stands and walks in front of him, spreading her arms.

"Leave him alone."

Gary blinks, then starts laughing. "He should protect you, carrot top, not the other way around."

"How did you call me?!" she growls. Gary keeps cackling.

"But actually yeah, I think this role suits him better," he comments. Misty balls her fist.

"Stop it!"

"Or what?" Gary teases her. "That pansy of your little beau will run to cry in his mother's skirt?"

A moment later Misty's charged him and punched him straight in the face.

Gary staggers backwards a little, his eyes wide. He presses the back of his hand to his mouth and stares bewildered at the blood from his split lip.

"You're crazy!" he cries out. For a second he looks ready to hit her back and she raises her chin, fearless.

"Want another one?" she growls. He looks at her and shakes his head.

"You're crazy," he repeats. He takes a step back, raises a hand to his mouth again. "I'll tell everyone you're crazy."

He takes a couple more steps back, then turns and walks away, muttering to himself and looking at his hand. Misty turns back to Ash. He stares at her for a couple moments, then starts laughing into the bloody rag.

"What's so— " she starts, but catches herself snickering as well. She lowers her head, hiding her mouth with her hand, trying to stop.

She walks back to him with her lips still attempting to curl into a smile. She takes his hands, gently, pulling the rag from his nose again. "It's not bleeding anymore, I think," she says, after observing it for a moment. "Does it still hurt?"

"A bit," he admits, looking away. Misty holds his hands in hers for another moment and then lets go.

"I have to go now," she says. "I'll be late."

"See you then," Ash replies. She nods and stoops down to pick up her basket, now a bit wet, and tries to brush the snow away from it.

"There's a full moon tonight," she reminds him. She doesn't need to add: be careful.

—-

The wind blows around the house, it sounds like voices. Sometimes she's afraid it'll tear the walls from the ground. The wood creaks, the roof groans under the weight of the snow. The last cracks from the dying fire, the brittle crunch of her straw mattress every time she moves. The pebbles they threw in the river and the day she tried to teach Ash how to do it, taking his wrist in her fingers and guiding his hand. Ash's eyes. He never learned how to throw those pebbles. The moon, round, a perfect circle, white on pitch-black. Big footprints on the fresh snow, she saw them once, someone had tried to wipe them away with some branches but you could still see them a little. She laid her foot on one and they were three times as big. The round pebble in her pocket like a lucky charm. The bones of the goat on the white ground, her red cape on the snow.

It's still dark when she wakes up. She emerges slowly from her sleep, lingering in it for a while. It takes her some time to notice the sound.

It's a breath. Heavy and low, a growl almost. It comes from outside. Misty looks at the closed window and holds hers, still under her blankets with her heart racing in her chest, not daring to move a muscle.

She listens for what feels like hours, barely daring to breathe. The sound is cavernous and hoarse, she pictures it coming from enormous lungs inside an enormous chest. She pictures the thing Ash once saw or believed he saw, huge and black, crouching outside his house like a patient predator; and she can't take her eyes off the window.

It's almost dawn when the breath finally grows dim and stops. Misty lies still for a little longer, eyes wide open in the dark now barely brightened by a hint of pale sunlight, then grasps the blanket and pulls it over her head, curling up in a tight ball.

—-

_She wears the red cape for five more winters. On the sixth she takes it off with trembling hands and throws it across the room, thinking she'll never be able to look at it again. She'll pick it up again hours later, smooth the creases with her hands and bury her face in the fabric. She'll curl up on her bed holding it and hoping to cry until she'll wear herself out and fall asleep, but she'll only manage to lose her voice and feel her chest tear into pieces, hurting so badly she'll think she can't possibly take it anymore. The fabric is warm, a little worn out, rough but comforting against her cheek. She strokes it, feeling it soaked with her tears._


	2. Chapter 2

(A/N: Just a quick note—I am aware that Lily's hair is pink. But I like to headcanon that she and Violet dye their hair, and of course they wouldn't be able to in this... vague middle age-ish setting, so in this story all of Misty's sisters have blonde hair.)

**2.**

Sitting next to Ash, Misty adjusts her slightly too-short skirt, pulling at it to cover her feet; she puts the hood of her cape back on and hugs her knees, watching the river in silence. It hasn't snowed yet this year, but the cold squeezes inside her clothes and the sky is gray and close. Next to her Ash frowns a little, focused on the fishing rod he's holding. At fourteen, he still looks far more like a kid than a man. She looks at him for a moment, the still-soft roundish lines of his profile, pointy shoulders under his heavy clothes; then turns back to the water. The river is clear. Here and there she can see the white pebbles on the bottom.

"My sister, Lily, will be married in a few weeks," she says, her voice low, nervously biting at her lip. "Then I'll be the last one left."

Ash says nothing, but frowns a little more. Misty looks down.

"I wonder if my father's already thinking of someone to give me away to."

"But it's soon to think about that, right?" Ash asks. "You're fourteen. Your sister is what, seventeen?"

"Yeah," she answers. She hesitates, then adds: "Daisy was fifteen."

Ash stays silent for a moment. She sees his lips thinning to a line out of the corner of her eye.

"It's soon to think about that," he says.

She sighs. "Yeah," she whispers, and draws a little closer. Not enough to lean on him, but enough for her arm to brush slightly against his, maybe by accident.

The rod Ash is holding jerks suddenly. Distracted, he's unprepared and yanks it too hard: the silvery back of a fish appears for a moment above the surface, then the line snaps.

"Aah, damn it!" he cries out. He straightens the rod and looks at the broken end. "Now that I finally caught something."

The basket open next to him is still empty. Misty sighs a little: "You did it wrong. And I bet even the fishes don't want to come out in this cold," she comments. "We might as well leave."

"You can go," Ash replies, and pulls another line from the basket to replace the broken one. She looks at him.

"You're not coming?"

Ash shakes his head. "I have to catch something," he says. Misty watches him for a couple more moments, then sighs again, louder. "Alright."

"You don't have to stay here," he retorts, threading the line on the rod, his fingers quick and precise. He stoops to take another hook from the basket and raises it in front of his eyes, looking at it before tying it in place: "It's the last one, I hope I don't lose it".

Misty shrugs. _Stubborn._ "I'll keep you company."

Ash doesn't retort. He places the bait on the hook and casts it into the water.

For a while they both watch the thread wobbling slowly, quietly jerked around by the stream. Then she sighs once more and lets herself fall backwards on the grass, looking at the sky.

"I told you, you can go," Ash comments. She shakes her head.

"I'm fine here."

The clouds above her are flat and even, a white-grey. "I think it'll snow soon."

"It's strange it hasn't yet," he says. Misty nods. They both fall back into silence.

After quite some time she sees Ash's shoulders stiffen suddenly. She sits up; he yanks the rod again, careful not to pull too hard this time.

"Did you catch something?"

He nods, focused, his eyebrows in a frown and his lips pressed together. "Big one, too," he says. The fish tugs harder and the rod almost slips from his hands, curving as if about to snap in two. Ash mutters a curse and pulls at it again, struggling to hold it.

Misty stands up on her knees and moves behind him, placing her arms around his waist and her hands tight on the rod. He bends backwards to pull and leans on her a bit: through his skin and his clothes she can feel his heart racing. It echoes in her chest as if it were her own.

Holding the rod together they get the fish out of the river. It's a rainbow trout, a huge one, maybe bigger than any she's seen before. It wriggles dangling from the line, spraying drops of water all around.

She draws back a little and cracks a half-laugh, not even quite knowing why: "Wow!"

Ash smiles. "Quite the catch," he agrees, unhooking the fish from the line. He grabs a knife from the basket to clean it, and she can't help but wince a little as the blade plunges between its white scales.

"Ew."

"I didn't think you so delicate," Ash teases her.

"I feel a little sorry," she grumbles. He laughs and lays the trout in the basket, covering it with some grass.

"Well, we need to eat after all."

Misty shrugs. "I feel sorry all the same. Do you still want to stay here?"

He nods. "I want to see if I can catch something else," he says, and places another bait on the hook.

She sits back down next to him. "Then I'm staying too."

Ash looks at her for a moment, surprised, then turns to cast the rod again. "As you wish."

—-

Her mother, when she walks back home, is bent over the kitchen table. There's something strangely out of place about her—maybe something about the way she's moving, or something about her long red braid, slightly undone in places. When she hears her and turns, only to look down a moment later, Misty makes out red eyes and the lines of her face strained and dark.

She takes off her cape, hanging it near the door. "Mother…?" she calls. "Did something happen?"

She shakes her head without looking at her. "No, dear, everything's alright," she assures her, but there's an uncertainty buried somewhere in her voice. She pushes her hair away from her forehead with her harm, her hands white with flour, and adds: "Nothing happened".

Misty stands by the door, unsure. Her mother turns for a moment, a forced smile on her lips.

"Do me a favor, will you? Go outside and help your sister."

She nods after a moment of hesitation, her eyes lingering on her undone braid and the strands of hair falling messily around her face. She gropes for her cape and pulls it from the hook to put it back on. Despite it she shivers as she opens the door again.

In the backyard Lily is kneeling next to a row of parsley, a handful of it lying on a piece of cloth spread on her lap. Misty walks closer.

"Need some help?"

Lily nods towards the green leaves. "If it snows tonight it's all going to freeze," she says, adjusting a strand of hair behind her ear.

Misty crouches by her side. She looks up from the parsley after a couple minutes, frowning as she turns towards Lily, and asks: "Do you know if something happened?"

Her sister raises her eyebrows, thin, well-drawn arches. "What do you mean?"

"Our mother looked… strange," Misty says. She shrugs a little, uncertain. "Like she had cried or… something happened to her. Do you know anything about it?"

Lily thinks about it for a moment. "She came home a while ago," she says then. "I don't know where she's been."

"Didn't you think there was something odd about her?"

"Yes," Lily replies, after hesitating a little longer. "I figured she had her reasons. If something serious happened she'd tell us, wouldn't she?"

Misty looks away. "Yeah, I guess so."

Her sister shrugs, turning away. "If it's important she'll tell us sooner or later."

"Yeah," Misty says again, not quite convinced, and thinks of her messy hair and red eyes, and other things too. The way her mother's clothes sometimes look empty and sagging, as if hanging from a branch or standing in place by witchcraft, with nothing inside; the dark circles she sees around her eyes sometimes and the lines on her face. Deep, an old woman's almost. Her mother isn't forty yet.

She closes her hand around one of the green springs. "Lily?"

"What now?" she asks, sounding annoyed. Misty bites the inside of her cheek.

"Are you happy to get married?"

Lily is silent for a moment, then says "of course" like she never really thought about it before, or never supposed someone would ask and thus never asked herself, either. Misty looks down at her hands, red from the cold, the green leaves of the parsley.

"Really?"

"Of course, what kind of question is that?" Lily replies. She shakes her head and runs a hand through her ash-blonde hair. "All girls get married. Why wouldn't I be happy?"

"I don't know," she admits. She thinks about it for a moments, then adds: "It's just, I was thinking… that then it'll be my turn. And I'm not sure I'll be happy."

Lily shrugs. "Well, I wouldn't worry," she says. "Nobody will want to marry you with that hair."

Misty glares at her and instinctively raises a hand to the red strands falling over her shoulder, pushing them back as if to hide them. Then looks away again.

"Nevermind," she grumbles, huffy.

"But I forgot, you already have a fiancé, don't you?" Lily teases her. Misty shoots her another glare.

"Ash isn't my fiancé."

Lily raises an eyebrow. "But I didn't say any names."

She feels her blood rush to her cheeks and lowers her head, hiding under the hood of her cape. "…Well, who else could you have meant?"

Her sister doesn't reply. Misty can't see her, with her hood pulled over her burning face, but she pictures her lips curling in a malicious smirk and for a moment she thinks of standing, throwing all the parsley in her face and leaving. She doesn't only because she doesn't want to go back inside and look at their mother's red eyes again.

They keep working in silence.

After a while Misty looks up, straightening her aching back, and something cold brushes her cheeks. She looks at the sky, blinking: two three four five more snowflakes fall on her face.

She turns towards Lily. Distracted, her sister brushes one of the springs with her fingertips, her eyes wandering. As Misty observes her she claps it suddenly, abruptly, tearing it from the ground.

—-

"There's a full moon tonight, you should be home."

Misty turns and shakes her head, annoyed. "What do you care?!" she retorts.

Gary shrugs, his back leaning against a wall and his hand grasping a knife he's using to strip the bark from a branch. "Just thought I'd remind you. You looked like your head was in the clouds."

"It's none of your business, anyway," she replies. She turns to leave, her shoes sinking in the snow. When she went to sleep last night there were only a few splashes of white on the roofs still; this morning everything was covered in a thick white blanket.

"If you see Ash, say hello for me and tell him he's still a pansy," Gary says.

"Go to hell!" she snaps without looking back again. She tightens her hand around the handle of her basket and hurries her steps a little, but not enough to not hear him comment, sarcastic: "You know, that language's not very ladylike!"

For a moment she considers turning back, snatching the branch from his hands and hitting him in the face and then asking if _that_ was ladylike, then decides it's not worth it. She was thinking of visiting Ash before going home and it's already late: the sun is turning orange behind the roofs, and soon it'll be time to lock doors and windows so that the moon cannot be seen and no one (or _nothing?_) can walk out or in. She always tries to see him, the day before, to sneak a somewhat concealed "be careful" somewhere. She hasn't yet today, and it unnerves her even if she knows it's a silly thing. Ash will be careful even without her reminding him to. Or not, but if he's going to be an idiot her reminder still won't change a thing.

When she finds him busy chopping wood, though, she's a bit relieved anyway. "Hey," she calls, and he jumps a little, because the snow swallowed the sound of her steps.

He turns and smiles. "Hey," he replies. He's sweating despite the cold and wipes his forehead with his sleeve, setting the axe down for a moment. "What are you doing still around? It's full moon tonight."

Misty puffs her cheeks a little. "Not you too," she sighs. "My house is a two minutes walk from here, and it's not even dark yet. I brought you this."

She hands over her basket. Inside, wrapped in a pink handkerchief, are two slices of the cake she made today for her mother and for Lily. She kept them for him because for once it didn't get burned, nor did it deflate suddenly when she took it out of the oven, and it didn't taste funny.

Ash walks closer to peek inside, curious. "What's it?"

"Cake."

"Did you make it?" he asks, sounding a little concerned.

Misty glares at him. "I already ate some, it's alright this time."

He laughs. "Alright, I'll trust you. But if I'm sick tomorrow I'm gonna blame it on you."

She gives him the eye again and he laughs some more. "You can keep the basket, I'll take it back tomorrow," she tells him then. Ash takes it; he's hot from working, but his hands are red and chapped from the cold all the same.

Misty holds his wrists for a moment. "Don't they hurt?" she asks. He studies them and shrugs. He holds the basket in one and opens and closes the other a couple times, and the cracks in his skin open too, red like fire.

"I got used to it, can't really feel them anymore," he says, vague.

"That's because they're freezing, not getting used," she retorts. "You should go inside and warm yourself up."

"I have to finish here first," he replies. He leaves the basket with her cake on the steps. Tomorrow she won't come to get it back, it'll be the last of her thoughts, but she doesn't know yet.

He places another piece of wood on the stump, lifting the axe in his reddened hands. The blade hits the log, splitting it in two; Ash picks up the pieces and lays them on top of the smaller pile of already chopped wood. It doesn't quite look like he'll finish anytime soon.

"I'd better go now," Misty says. She's about to add "be careful", but before she can do it Ash looks up, smiling slightly.

"Be careful," he says, in a casual tone, the same he'd use to say bye, and for some strange reason hearing that warning from him instead of the other way around makes her shudder a little. "See you. Thanks for the cake."

"No problem," she replies. She waves goodbye before turning to leave.

It's starting to snow again. Misty wraps herself in her cape, walking faster, and thinks about Ash's hands all chapped and red from the cold. She turns to see if he's still outside, but she's too far already, she can't see him anymore.

"It's late," her father points out, serious, when she walks in.

Misty lowers her head. "I know. I'm sorry."

Her father sighs. He closes the door behind her and turns the latch, the bigger one, that she can only move if she leans on it with all her weight. "Take your shoes off. You're bringing all the snow inside."

She obliges. She takes off her shoes, leaving them next to the door, then her cape.

The fire has almost gone out. Misty grabs the poker and moves the burned wood around until a flame rises, orange and tall. She sits, hugging her knees, still wondering if Ash is still out under the snow.

—-

"Wake up. Wake up!"

She feels like she's only been asleep for a couple hours when her father's voice suddenly jolts her awake. She blinks; the light coming through the window is a pale blue-white, not quite dawn yet. A hand grasps her shoulder and shakes her.

She sits up, confused and a little scared. Next to her Lily is rubbing her eyes.

"What happened?" she manages to ask, not entirely awake still. Her father is a dark shape towering between her and the window.

"Where's your mother?"

Misty turns towards Lily. She frowns and shakes her head, as puzzled as she is.

"You didn't hear her go out?"

Misty's eyes widen. "Out?"—it hitches somewhere in her throat, coming out in a whisper.

"When I woke up she wasn't there and the door was open," their father says. "Neither of you heard anything?"

She shakes her head. "But it was a full moon night! Why would she…?"

Their father doesn't reply. He turns for a moment, looking at the window and the snow piling on the sill, then climbs downstairs without a word. The wood of the ladder creaks under his weight.

"Wait," Misty calls. She stands and follows him, shivering in her nightgown. "Where are you going?"

"To look for your mother," he says. He takes his heavy woollen cape from the hook and throws it on his shoulders. Misty shakes her head again, clenching her hands into trembling fists.

"Wait! I'm coming with you."

"You'll stay here with your sister," he cuts short. She clasps her hands tighter, her nails digging painfully into her palms.

"I want to come," she insists. Her father turns back to look at her.

"You'll stay _here_, with your sister," he repeats, sharp, stressing every syllable. Misty bites her lip hard and looks at the floor.

"Yes, sir."

He lets out a "mh" as if to mean "well", then opens the door and walks out, slamming it shut with enough force that the walls tremble slightly and snow falls from the roof with a soft _thump_. Lily hurries down the ladder, reaches her and tightens her hands on her shoulders, almost clinging to her.

"He'll find her."

Misty looks at the door. "It was a full moon night," she whispers. She loosens her fingers, shaking. "The wolf's night."

She draws away from her sister and rushes back upstairs, her heart suddenly hammering in her chest. She takes off her nightgown, dropping it on the floor, and puts her clothes on in a hurry. Her hands are trembling harder, slowing her down. "What are you doing?" Lily asks. Misty finishes lacing up her dress and climbs down the ladder again without replying. Under Lily's puzzled gaze she puts on her shoes, then her cape.

"Where are you going?"

"To look for our mother," she answers quickly. She opens the door and icy wind hits her, making her shiver harder.

"But our father said—"

"I heard what he said," Misty interrupts her. It's snowing a little. She bites her lip, looking at her father's footprints on the white. "Something happened to her."

"What?!" Lily cries out.

"It was the wolf's night," Misty says again. Her voice comes out uncertain, stumbling on the last two or three syllables as if she were about to cry, to the point that she instinctively raises a hand to her cheek expecting it to be wet. It's not. "She would never have gone outside otherwise."

Her sister's hand grasps her arm. "I'm coming with you then!"

Misty turns back. Lily's eyes are wide and terrified, her face pale as a sheet. She's still in her nightgown, her free hand clasped on her chest. Misty shakes her head.

"Stay here. She might come back, she'd get worried if she did and no one was here."

"But you said something happened to her!" Lily insists. Tears shine trapped in her blonde eyelashes. They fall as soon as she blinks.

"Maybe I'm wrong," Misty tells her. She pulls her hood up. "Stay here, alright?"

"Alright," Lily answers, in a trembling whisper. She slowly lets her go, clenching her hands together. Misty nods and steps outside.

It's not quite day yet. It's terribly cold, and she wraps herself in her red cape, sinking in the snow up to her shins with every step. Her breath puffs white, thick.

"Mother?" she tries. It barely comes out, she almost doesn't hear it herself. She breathes in, freezing, and tries again: "Mother! Can you hear me?"

There's no answer. She bundles up tighter in her cape and walks faster, blowing on her hands to warm them. The village is still asleep. All around her the houses are silent, locked doors and fastened latches.

The wind throws her hood back, blowing in her hair. She struggles a bit to put it back on and walks holding it in place with both hands, her head lowered.

Behind the house she stops.

Near the wall is a curled up shape, a bundle of rags on the snow.

Misty presses her hands on her mouth, no sound coming out.

The gray fabric of her dress. Her white hand outstretched, snow on her palm. Dark red hair dotted white.

"Mother!" she shouts, suddenly snapping out of her shock. She starts running and stumbles on her cape, falls on her knees and stands again, nearly tripping a second time. There's blood all around. On the snow, on her dress, on her neck exposed and so so white.

Her fingers barely brush her skin before arms grab her by the waist and yank her away. She still feels the cold: it freezes her from the inside out, worse than the snow and the wind, hurting like nothing has ever hurt before. She struggles to break free.

"Go back home," her father says. His voice is low, hoarse. Misty tries to push him away, buries her fingernails in his callous hands; screams when he tries to hold her. Her father grabs her by the shoulders and turns her towards him, and slaps her hard enough that her head bounces to the side.

He's never laid a hand on her in fourteen years. Misty's eyes widen and she stands still, her breath stuck in her chest in a painful knot. He lets her go, slowly.

"Go home," he says. He looks at her for a long moment, shaking his head. Then kneels next to his wife's lifeless body and cradles it in his arms, nestling her head to his chest. Her hands fall back, white and still. Her hair sticking in blood-red clumps, her stained cheeks, her lap full of snow.

Misty takes a half-step back. She can't breathe, there's a terrible pain in her chest. It's choking her, tearing her in two. Maybe she'll die of it, she'll fall on the snow too and never get up again.

"Go home!" her father says again, for the third time. Desperately, almost pleading. She takes another step, and another, another, then turns and starts running.

Her legs barely hold her. She keep seeing the blood, her hands, her hair, and she squeezes her eyes shut, blind.

When she gets to the front door she almost falls to her knees.

Lily runs towards her. "Did you find her? What happened?" she asks, and Misty cannot answer. Her voice won't come out, her lips are numb, refusing to move. She stumbles to the ladder and Lily follows her like a shadow.

"You didn't take your shoes off, you're bringing the snow inside…"

She barely hears her. She clings to the ladder and climbs it shaking so hard that she slips one or two times, and only barely manages not to fall.

By her bed she stops. She looks at her trembling hands and they don't look hers. She curls her half-frozen fingers. They don't look hers still.

She takes off her cape, slowly. She thinks of her mother draping it on her shoulders and something inside her suddenly falls to pieces, crumbles so violently that she can't stand to look at it anymore. She throws it as far as she can.

She curls up on her bed, still wearing her shoes and her snow-soaked dress. She's trembling and yet something deep inside her is burning, burning, burning.

She can't move.


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

When someone knocks on the door she's curled up on her bed, clutching her cape in her arms. She picked it up crying and buried her face in the red fabric, but it didn't smell like her mother, only like her. Under her cheek it's soaked through with her tears. She cried so much that the pain in her chest became unbearable, as if with every sob something inside her ripped in two.

(_She's dead_, she finally screamed when Lily kept talking. _She's dead, shut up, shut up, shut UP._)

Her father opens the door. His steps are heavy on the wooden floor; the door hinges groan. "What do you want?" his voice is rough, hoarse. There's silence for a moment.

"I heard… about what happened." It's Ash's voice, and Misty raises her head a little, her fingers still grasping the cape. "I wanted to see Misty."

"Now's not the time," her father says, sharp. The door hinges creak again.

"Wait," Ash pleads. "Please, I… just want to see her for a moment."

"Not now, I said," her father repeats. "Leave now."

"No," Misty whispers. Her voice is an empty shell. She swallows, her throat burning from all the crying, and slowly sits up. "Please, father, let him stay for a while."

Her father says nothing. Misty stands, her legs barely holding her. Her head spins as if she had a fever. She's scared she'll fall, when she grasps the ladder to climb down, but it doesn't happen and her feet finally touch the floor, one after the other. She forgot to take off her shoes.

Ash is standing in front of the door. He always seemed small to her, a kid still, but now she thinks he may be strong enough to hold her too. She feels smaller now, trampled on and crushed to nothing. Maybe she does have a fever after all.

She walks to him and her legs really do give in. He catches her and holds her tight as she starts sobbing again. "I'm so sorry," he whispers, his words brushing the skin of her neck. "I'm sorry." He's cold, there's snow on his shoulders and in his hair, melting as she hugs him. He strokes her back slowly and she lets him hold her, because she can't do it, her pain is tearing her to shreds; and right now his arms feel like the only thing holding her together.

—-

It's almost evening when she hears the voices in the streets.

Her father walked out right after he managed to chase Ash away. He lowered his hat on his face saying he needed to drink and that he was going to the tavern, and disappeared for hours. Daisy and Violet are there. They came as soon as they found out, Violet in tears, her husband holding an arm around her back; Daisy alone, pale as a ghost.

Misty stands and runs to the window, opening it and leaning over the sill to see. Wind blows in her face, making her squint.

"What's happening?" Daisy wants to know.

She shakes her head. "I don't know," she answers. She sees lights in the distance. She tries to lean farther, but she still can't make out anything else, so she steps away from the window and walks to the door. "Wait," Daisy says, but she doesn't quite have enough energy to raise her voice. Misty runs outside. The lights and the voices are coming from the town square.

She heads that way, quick. She forgot her cape, she realizes it when she's halfway down the road, and shivering she wraps her hands around her body. The lights are torches. As she gets closer she makes out some of the voices too, men shouting: "Let's go get that bastard!" someone yells in the crowd, and all around rises a chorus of "yes!".

Misty starts running again. She's close, but she's out of breath all the same when she gets there, as if she'd ran for miles. The square is crowded with men. They yell and wave about pitchforks and torches, reeking of alcohol and sweat. Misty tries to make her way through them and someone shoves her aside, grumbling that this ain't no place for a little girl, _shoo_, go back home. When she tries asking what's happening they turn away, shouting too loud to hear her.

She looks around and for a moment she sees her father. She runs to him, losing sight of him more than once; when she finally reaches him she yanks at his cape.

"Father!" she calls. He turns. He's holding his hunting knife and reeks of alcohol like the others.

"What the hell are you doing here? Go home."

Misty shakes her head. "What's happening?"

"We're going to get the wolf that killed your mother," he answers, grim. The blade of his knife catches the torchlight and blinds her for a moment; she blinks. "Go home. I'm ordering you."

She shakes her head again. Someone bumps against her, making her stagger, air escapes from her lungs. "Father, please, if the wolf kills you too— "

"I will kill it," he interrupts her, his words sharp. He wrenches the hem of his cape from her hands and looks at her. "Now go home. I don't want to hear another word."

He says it in a growl almost, his voice ridden with such a ferocity and relentlessness that instinctively she takes half a step back, afraid. A moment later someone slams into her again, carelessly thrusting her to the side, and she looses her balance and falls in the snow. She stands up quick, brushing it away from her skirt and her freezing hands. She can't see her father anymore. She tries to look around, tossed about by the crowd; she sees backs draped with heavy capes and hands holding pitchforks, axes, knives. Someone steps on the hem of her dress and Misty bumps into his side. "Get lost, little girl, this is no place for you," slurs a hoarse voice, a drunk's voice. She draws back shivering. She straightens her neck and tries to stand on tiptoes, staggering and sinking in the snow, and at once her eyes widen.

"Ash!" she calls. She starts running again, terrified of losing him, and when she reaches him she almost throws herself on him and grasps his arm and tugs at it hard. He hadn't heard her, of course, and he jumps and then spins around.

"What are you doing here?" he cries out. He's holding a torch, and tucked in his belt is the axe he uses to chop wood. Misty shakes her head furiously, her hair flying on her face.

"What are _you_ doing here?!" she retorts. She holds him tighter, to make sure he won't go away. "Are you going with them? Have you gone mad?!"

He shrugs. "I want to catch that wolf," he says, as if it were nothing. As if the wolf weren't frightening; as if it had not just killed someone.

Misty doesn't let him go. "It's dangerous!" she shouts. Her voice cracks and she tries to hold it together. "You could get yourself killed!"

"It won't happen," he retorts. She presses her lips together and tears suddenly sting in the back of her eyes.

"Please don't go," she insists. Please don't get killed, not you too. Ash frees his arm from her grasp, gently, and lays a hand on her shoulder.

"Nothing's gonna happen to me," he assures her. He smiles for a moment, determined. His fingers stroke her shoulder a little. "I'm going to find the wolf and make it pay."

"You're an idiot," she whispers. She sniffles and wipes her eyes with her hand, then looks up. "If you go I'm coming too."

"Don't be stupid," he retorts.

"I'm not being stupid!" Around them the crowd is starting to move, on the cry of "let's go get it!". "If you go I'm following."

"They won't let you come, they said no women," Ash says. "As soon as someone sees you they'll drag you back here."

Misty is about to reply, but she doesn't quite know what and she shakes her head with no words coming out of her throat, trying not to blink so she won't cry again. "Stay," is the only thing she manages to whisper.

Don't go. Please. I've already lost too much today, I cannot stand to lose you as well.

Ash still has his hand on her shoulder, but he turns back impatiently, ready to follow the others. "Nothing's gonna happen to me," he insists. "Go home. We'll find the wolf, we'll kill it and we'll come back. We're a lot! It won't be able to fight all of us."

She sinks her teeth into her lip. Ash looks at her and gives her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "It's gonna be fine," he promises. "I have to go now. I'll come back in one piece, alright?"

"Alright," she whispers. Her eyes are burning again. Ash smiles, then lets her go and turns back again, running to catch up with the others.

Misty stands at the center of the square. She's freezing, wearing only her dress, and she wraps her arms around herself again as she watches the men leave. Ash slips on the snow and almost falls face first, waving his arms to regain balance. Gary is among the others; she hadn't seen him before. She waits a little longer.

She follows them as soon as they're far enough not to notice her.

They're fast, she has to run to keep up. A few times one of them turns back and she has to press her back against a wall or hide behind a corner, quick. She lets them get farther, but she can't see Ash anymore and so she hurries her steps again, holding her skirt not to trip on it.

They stop when they're outside the village, and she stops too, crouching behind the wall with her heart racing in her back. She listens as her breath draws white clouds.

"The wolf is probably hiding in the woods. Let's find it and drag it out of its den!" someone yells, and another chorus of "yes!" follows. "The beast may be strong, but we're many! We have nothing to fear!"

More enthusiastic cries; then there's dozens of feet trampling on the snow again. She waits a few more moments and then stands back up to follow.

It's getting dark. Torchlight casts an orange gleam through the trees. Misty struggles to keep up, shivering harder than ever. Her skirt gets caught in the thorny branches of some bush and she has to stop and yank it away, and when she turns back for a brief moment she almost panics, because she can't see them anymore. But she sees flames flashing through the woods, and she starts running again, pushing branches out of her way with frozen fingers.

They stop again as they reach a clearing. Misty hides with her back against a tree and holds her breath, praying they won't see her.

"We should split up," someone urges. "If we split up we'll find it faster."

Disagreeing grumbles: "But we'll also make it easier for it to kill us!"

"We're armed," the first voice insists. "We're ready to fight! We have no reason to fear!"

The clamour grows louder, turning into people yelling at one another. "Enough! Silence!" someone shouts. It's her father's voice and Misty jumps, holding her breath. "We'll split up. It's the best way to find it."

There's more grumbling and more yelling, then the group starts scattering around. Just in time Misty manages to stoop down, curling up in a ball under the branches. Two sets of heavy boots tread on the snow in front of her eyes, so close she could stretch out an arm and touch them.

She dares to look up when they disappear, a little; then straightens her neck. She can't see Ash and her stomach crumples as she leans a little farther. Her father turns back and she dives into the bushes again, scraping her cheeks and palms on the thorns. She waits, her heart hammering in her temples, thinking he saw me, of course he saw me, he'll come here and drag me back home. But her father doesn't come to get her. She waits a little longer, then raises her head again.

Ash is down the path, the torch in one hand and the axe still in his belt.

Misty stands up, brushing snow from her skirt and thorns from her hair, and hurries to follow before she loses him again. Careful not to let the other see her, she bends down and runs from a tree to a bush to another tree until she leaves most of their voices and their footsteps behind. Ash looks around cautiously, alert. Even as she tries to hide she sees his back and shoulders tense, his brow in a frown when he turns.

He takes the axe from his belt when he's far from the others. He lifts it in his hand and weighs it, as if considering the strength of an eventual blow, and suddenly she feels her eyes burn because she's sure that strength could never be enough. Ash is only a kid still. If the wolf charged him he'd probably barely manage to scratch its skin before being torn to pieces. Maybe not even that.

"You idiot," she whispers, and hurries her steps to get closer. Ash keeps turning back, nervous. One or two times he almost sees her, and she has to recoil behind a tree. He hesitates for a moment before he starts walking again, chewing at his lip and shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Her hands hurt from the cold. She can barely move her fingers, and she blows on them trying to warm them up a bit, but it's no good. She tucks them under her arms, but she needs her hands to make her way through the snow-covered branches and untangle her skirt from the thorns. She yanks hard at the fabric, walking faster because she fell behind.

Ash looks around again. The hand that holds the torch trembles just a little.

She walks closer and a branch cracks under her foot, the crunch deafening in the quiet of the woods.

She hides behind another tree as Ash turns. There's silence for a couple moments. Then a step and another, and silence again.

"Who's there?" Ash's voice calls, a bit unsure.

Misty holds her breath. She can't see him, but she sees the light of the torch and after a moment she sees him set it down. His shadow stretches on the orange-lit snow, bigger as he walks closer. He lifts the axe.

"Who's there?" he calls again. Misty says nothing; he takes another step forward.

"It's me," she blurts out, when the shadow of the axe is close enough to touch her. Ash stops, taken aback. Then lets his arms fall and walks around the tree.

"…What on earth are you doing here? Are you crazy?!"

"I followed you," she grumbles, like it wasn't obvious already. Ash stares at her, his eyes wide. Now she can clearly see he's scared, even if he'd probably get angry and deny if she asked. He shakes his head and grabs her arm.

"I'm bringing you home," he says. She draws back.

"No."

He rolls his eyes. "I'm bringing you home and I'm staying, I'm not going back to the woods, fine now?"

"Fine," she nods. Ash sighs. He lets her go and mumbles a disgruntled "come", placing the axe back in his belt. He picks up the torch, then turns to her and grabs her hand, and almost lets it go again when he realizes how cold she is.

"What were you trying to do, freeze to death?" he says, puffing his cheeks. He hands her the torch. "C'mon, come here and warm yourself up a bit, stupid."

"I'm fine," she retorts, but walks closer anyway. Ash grumbles "yeah, sure" and wraps his arm around her back.

They walk in silence because Ash is busy pouting at her. Men's voices echo around them from time to time, and Ash looks around as if they were far more scary than the wolf.

"If your father sees you he'll think I brought you here and kill me," he complains. Misty raises her eyebrows.

"My father would never do that."

"He didn't even want me to see you," Ash says. Misty doesn't reply. Suddenly she remember the tears she cried on his shoulder, and her mother's hair in the snow, like a punch in the gut, and she bites her lip hard not to cry.

Ash notices. "I'm sorry," he says, his voice softer. Misty looks down at her feet, tears stinging in her eyes again.

He tightens his arm around her waist for a moment: "We're almost there."

—-

She's trembling so hard her teeth are chattering when they finally reach the village. "I'm taking you home," Ash says, and she nods, urgent. His arm is the only thing that feels remotely warm.

They've almost reached her house when a bitter laugh rises from the half-darkness behind them.

She jumps and spins around. Ash pulls her closer.

"So our hero's back already? What happened? Your courage fell short before you even got there?"

Misty blinks, and suddenly recognizes the voice's owner. It's Ash's father. She's seen him only a few times, and she never spoke to him, but they look so much alike that it would be impossible not to see it. Ash's father is standing tall, towering over them, his shoulders wide; but the lines of their faces are the same, and both have the same ragged dark hair, even if Ash's is longer, and their eyes shine the same brown in the torchlight.

She shakes her head, taking a step forward. "It's my fault," she says. "I followed him and told him to come back."

"And I bet he was more than happy to have an excuse to come back home, mh?" the man sneers. Misty frowns.

"He'd still be out there hunting the wolf with the others if I hadn't stopped him."

She turns to Ash. He looks down, not saying anything. His hand grasps the torch so tightly it's shaking a bit. His father laughs again.

"Of course," he says. He looks at Ash too. "It's just like she said, isn't that so, you little coward?"

Ash still doesn't reply. She balls her fists, taking another half-step forward, and behind her he whispers "Misty" and lays a hand on her arm to hold her back.

"With all due respect, sir, you stayed here. How is your son the coward?"

"Misty," Ash says again, a little louder, as his father frowns and steps closer, watching her in a way that for some reason makes a shudder run down her spine. He tugs at her arm, his voice trembling just slightly under the surface: "Forget it, let's go."

His father turns to him again, a look of disgust on his face. "Let's go?" he repeats. He walks closer and Ash manages not to take a step back, but his whole body draws back a little. His hand trembles harder on the torch. "What's the problem, are you scared? And you wanted to hunt werewolves?"

Ash doesn't answer still. He looks down, his lips pressed in a thin line.

His father reaches them and she smells alcohol in his breath. He grabs Ash by his shirt and shakes him.

"You're pathetic," he growls. He yanks him harder, forcing him to rise on tiptoes, his head bouncing forward; Ash does nothing to break free.

"Let him go!" Misty cries out, her eyes wide. The man looks at her as if she repulsed him too, then shoves Ash aside, hard enough that he loses balance and falls face first in the snow. The torch slips from his fingers, the fire sizzling and dying. Misty runs to him and lays her hand on his shoulder as he sits up. "Are you alright?" she asks, and Ash nods without looking at her.

"Yeah," he whispers. He's shaking under her fingers. His muscles are tense under his skin, stiff.

His father laughs again. "Pathetic!" he repeats. Ash stands and brushes the snow from his clothes, his head hanging low. He grabs her by the arm.

"Come, I'm bringing you home," he says, tugging at her. She follows without questioning it. Her heart races in her chest, almost taking her breath away.

Ash's father's mocking laugh follows them, almost ghostly in the deserted street.

He slows down a bit when they turn the corner. He breathes in slowly; his shoulders look slender under his clothes, and suddenly he looks smaller than ever.

"Are you alright?" she asks again, softer, even if he answered already. Ash turns and forces his lips into a smile.

"Yeah, of course," he says, but there's still a trembling buried at the bottom of his voice. Someone else wouldn't notice, maybe, but she does. She looks at him, her eyebrows in a frown.

"Is your father always like that?"

He shakes his head, but he does it too quickly and looks away again. "He was drunk, that's probably it," he whispers, and in those words she also hears: please, don't ask anymore. She has to bite her lip not to.

They've reached her house. Ash lets her arm go and walks to the door to knock, but before he can do it the door bursts open, nearly hitting him in the face, and Daisy rushes out.

"Where were you?!" she asks, grabbing her by the shoulders. Misty blinks, then looks down.

"I followed Ash," she grumbles. "He brought me back here."

Daisy looks at Ash as if she'd only noticed him just now and then back at her. "Followed where? What's happening? Where's everyone?"

"Hunting for the wolf," Ash says.

Daisy's hands stiffen. She can't find anything to say for a moment, then shakes her head, as if trying to get her thoughts back in place. She realizes she's trembling.

"Come in," she sighs. She turns to Ash again, hesitates for a few seconds and then adds: "You too, if you want".

Inside the fire is burning and Misty curls up in front of it, shivering and hugging her knees. Her fingers are blue and numb from the cold. She watches them tremble, close to the flames.

Someone lays a blanket on her shoulders. She turns: Ash. He takes the axe from his belt and leaves it near the wall, then sits next to her. He wraps his arm around her back for a moment, stroking her shoulder to warm her up. He's about to draw back, then, maybe feeling watched by her sisters; but she rests her head on his shoulder, pulling the blanket tighter around herself. His body tenses up and then relaxes. Misty listens to his breath and for a while she tries not to think about anything else, but it only works for a few moments before everything comes back again, and when a sob escapes from her chest Ash pulls her closer and holds her tight.

—-

It's late at night when they hear voices and yelling in the streets again. She's not the first to run outside this time: as she puts on her cape she hears the thumps of other doors opening, the chattering of women running to their mein.

Only a handful of torches are still burning. Six, seven at most. Someone screams in agony. Standing at the edge of the square, Misty looks around wide-eyed, her heart hammering. Someone left bloody footprints in the snow; someone else walks over them, and she remembers blood on white cheeks and she feels sick. She stands on tiptoes and still can't see anything, just a throng of capes and backs and skirts and snowy boots, so she squeezes through the crowd.

"Father!" she calls, frantically looking around. Fingers grasp a bloody arm as someone walks past her. Misty draws back, swaying when a shoulder bumps into her, and tries to rise on tiptoes again, looking for a familiar face in the chaos.

"Father!" she says again, when she finally sees him. She runs to him and stops catching her breath. He's pale in the light of the few torches left; the lines of his face are dark and strained, dry, his eyes sunken. He holds his right shoulder and blood drips between his fingers, his arm hanging down his side. He looks at her without talking, lips pressed together under his mustache.

"What happened?" she wants to know. "Did you find it?"

"We found a wolf, yes," her father says, slowly. "A big gray wolf. Biggest one I've seen yet. Probably the one we were looking for."

Misty shakes her head a bit. "And did you kill it?"

Her father says nothing for a few moments. Then he turns away, looking at the crowd, and answers: "It killed two of us".

Her breath hitches in her chest. Before she can speak Lily reaches them in a hurry, raising a hand to their father's bleeding arm.

"Father! Are you hurt? What happened?"

"Nothing," he cuts short, his eyes still scanning the crowd. He turns to look at them. "Go home."

Misty shakes her head again. "You're not coming?"

"Not now," he says. He turns his head and walks away without another word, the crowd swallowing him in a moment.

"Wait!" she calls. She tries to run after him and a hand grasps her arm, holding her back.

It's Ash. "What happened?" he asks her. She needs a moment to put her thoughts in order.

"They found a wolf," she whispers. Her voice is shaking. "My father said… that it killed two more people."

And suddenly she remembers that he would have been out there hunting it if she hadn't followed him—he could have been one of those two people, lying motionless in the snow with stretched, pleading fingers. She turns and without even thinking about what she's doing she grabs his shirt and hugs him tight. He stands still for a moment, surprised, then clumsily lays his hands on her back. "…Hey," he says. "What…?"

"That could have been you! You idiot! What were you thinking, going out there?" she almost screams, then stops and tries to breathe, her heart racing. She lets him go. He looks puzzled for a moment, then smiles.

"It didn't happen, alright?" he reminds her. He doesn't say that everything's fine because it's not true, and she's thankful. She sniffles a bit. Ash takes her hand.

"Come," he says, raising his voice a little because there's some clamour in the crowd around them again. "No use staying there. I'll walk you home."

She looks back trying to find her father, but she can't see him anymore. Ash tugs at her hand gently. She breathes in when they leave that chaos behind, feeling as if she were catching her breath after swimming underwater. The night air is ice-cold, stinging in her chest like needles.

—-

They bury her mother two days later, with the two men killed in the wolf hunt. Misty cannot watch as the casket is lowered in the ground, and she stands shaking. It's snowing. White flakes fall on her shoulders and on her hair and in her eyes and she can't see anything. She blinks them away, snowflakes or tears, she's not sure. When she feels an arm around her waist she knows it's Ash, and she leans on him a little, her legs wobbly.

"I want to go home," she whispers. Dirt falls on the casket, she hears it and shuts her eyes tight, even if she's too far to see it.

"Do you want to leave now?" Ash asks gently. She hesitates.

"I don't know," she says in the end. She looks at the grave being slowly filled and bites her lip, and adds: "I should stay."

Ash says nothing. Misty rests her head on his shoulder and more dirt hits the wood. The shovel digs inside her body trying to tear her in two. She can't keep her eyes closed: she keeps seeing white hands crossed on an unmoving chest, red hair around a face made of wax. She has to hold onto him until there isn't a hole anymore.

When the small crowd starts scattering the three freshly covered graves are three dark patches on the white ground. Snow is already piling on them again. She blinks, and wonders how long until there's no trace left of them at all.

Ash follows her home, walking close but not touching her, because her father is watching. "Want to come in?" she asks in a whisper, when they're in front of the door.

He shakes his head. "Better if I don't." When she looks down he brushes her hair slightly and his fingers linger on her cheek for a moment before drawing back. "See you soon, though."

She nods. Ash says nothing for a moment, biting at the inside of his cheek.

"They're calling a hunter, have you heard?" he asks then.

Misty looks up. "Huh?"

"I heard someone talking about it this morning. They're calling a werewolf hunter from the city," Ash says. He looks at her and adds: "They'll catch it."

She shrugs a little. "It won't change anything," she says, and Ash finds nothing to reply.

He takes her hands and holds them just for a second. "See you soon," he repeats. Misty nods again, and watches him walk away.


	4. Chapter 4

**4.**

The hunter comes after three days.

There's a curious crowd gathered in the town square as the carriage stops. It's black, pulled by four horses; dark curtains shadow the windows. Soldiers follow on horseback. Misty walks a little closer, stopping as soon as she can see well enough. Her father stands ahead of everyone else, his face hardened, his arm held by a sling.

No one speaks. The horses' neighs cut sharp through the air.

When the door opens, she's expecting to see some tall, hefty man, with wide shoulders and muscular arms. But the silhouette that walks out of the carriage, wrapped in a black cape, is slender and undoubtedly a woman's. Her hair is light, an almost blue gray, cut chin-length. A wide-brimmed hat casts a shadow on her eyes.

Her father shakes his head, looking at the carriage as if waiting for someone else to get out. No one does, though, and one of the soldiers closes the door behind the woman's back.

"…What does this mean?" he asks, finally breaking the silence. "Who are you?"

The woman takes a few steps forward, looking at him. "The hunter you called."

He frowns, bewildered. "With all due respect, ma'am, the wolf killed two men. Strong, armed men."

"That wasn't your wolf," she says, calm. Her voice is as cold as the snow. She walks closer, studying his bandaged arm. "If it had been, you, sir, would be doomed. And so would be everyone else that was bitten by that beast."

Her father blinks. "What are you talking about?"

She turns slowly, her gaze scanning the crowd. She raises her voice to speak to everyone: "The bite of a werewolf will turn the victim into another wolf," she says, then looks back to her father. "If the wolf you're looking for were the one that bit you, I would have to kill you now. But that's not a concern, because it didn't happen on a full moon night, did it?"

"No," he answers, after hesitating for a moment. "On the full moon the wolf killed my wife. We hunted it the following night."

"A werewolf is only a wolf during a full moon," the woman says. She looks again at the crowd around the carriage and Misty shudders when she feels her eyes run over her, even if she still can't see them. "During the day and every other night of the month, the wolf is a human being. Every inch. Just like me or you."

"With all due respect," someone behind Misty's back shouts, "we've lived with that beast for more than twenty years. We know what we're dealing with."

"With all due respect, you have no idea," she retorts, unfazed. She raises her voice again: "A werewolf is a man until a full moon rises. Only then it turns into the beast you think you know. You think it lives in the woods, like an animal? You're wrong. The wolf lives here. In this village, amongst you. It could be your father, your son, your sister or your wife, and there would be no way for you to tell."

Her father shakes his head again. "But the wolf we found— "

"Merely a common gray wolf," she cuts short, interrupting him. She looks up. Her eyes are gray, dark but reflecting the light like mirrors. "Probably an extraordinarily big specimen, if it was able to kill two men, but nothing more. If it had been a werewolf, it's quite likely that none of you would have lived to tell the tale."

"How will _you_ be able to kill it, then?"

"It's been five nights since the full moon. Twentythree until the next. Twentythree days before the wolf is a wolf again. All we'll have to do is find it and kill it before then." Her eyes scan the crowd again and Misty shudders once more, fighting the impulse to draw back. "Are you innocent? Then you have nothing to fear. But if you are not, know that hiding cannot help you. Every one of your secrets will be disclosed. Every one of your most hidden thoughts will be revealed. The wolf could be anyone. You might have slept next to it for ten years and never once noticed a thing. A werewolf is cunning; it has to be to survive. It knows how to hide its secret. And none of you is above all suspects."

She turns back to her father and adds: "Not even you, sir".

Misty wraps her arms around herself and searches the crowd, looking for Ash. He isn't there.

Her father is silent for a few moments. The woman looks at him, her head held high. "I hope you will not try to stop me. I might think that you have something to hide."

He shakes his head. "I won't try to stop you," he says. "No one will."

She smiles slightly, for the first time. It's just a vague stretching of her lips, terrifying on her otherwise emotionless face.

"Good."

She draws a sword from under her cape. The blade, long and narrow, shines bright in the white sunlight like her eyes.

"A werewolf, regardless of its appearance, can only be killed by silver. I suppose you don't have much of it here."

Some whispering. Someone shakes his head.

"Just like I thought," she says. The sword disappears again in the folds of the black fabric. "I'll keep my eyes on you. I'll notice every move you make. If you have something to hide, you might as well admit it now."

No one speaks.

"What should we call you?" her father asks, after a moment of silence.

"You don't need to know my name," the woman says, cold. "I'm a werewolf hunter. You can call me J."

—-

"That woman creeps me out."

She pulls her knees closer to her chest, sitting on the stone steps in front of Ash's house. He gives her a curious look before swinging his axe; it hits the wood wrong, cutting away a thin slice rather than splitting it in two, and Ash grumbles a curse under his breath and stoops down to adjust the log on the stump again.

"I haven't seen her yet," he says then.

"Yeah, I didn't see you there," Misty remembers. He lowers the axe again and wipes sweat from his brow with his sleeve.

"I was busy here," he explains, vague. "My father wanted me to finish this."

Misty doesn't reply. She thinks of Ash's father grabbing him by his shirt and shoving him aside in the snow, and of all the times Ash told her _I have to finish here, I have to do this, my father told me to_; and curiosity prickles on her skin like needles. But he'd probably smile and tell her there's nothing to worry about, and maybe she'd hear his voice tremble just a little, barely enough for her to notice.

She looks at his hands as he takes another log from the wood pile. They're even more red and chapped now, and he blows on them to warm them up, distractedly. He raises the axe again, then seems to remember something and sets it down, turning back. "Wait here," he tells her, and runs towards the house, hopping past her on the steps.

"What for?" she wants to know. Ash answers without stopping: "Wait there, I'll be right back!"

She waits, a bit puzzled. He's back after a couple minutes and lays her basket on her lap. "This is yours," he says. He hesitates for a moment, then cracks a smile and adds: "You were right, the cake was alright this time."

She looks at the basket as if it were from a past life, one where her mother was alive; and the back of her eyes stings a bit. "Thank you," she whispers. "I forgot". Ash gives her shoulder a squeeze, then goes back to the wood. He stretches his arms above his head before picking up the axe again, and rubs his right shoulder, looking pained.

"Why don't you rest a little?" Misty asks. He shakes his head without turning.

"I have to finish this."

She hesitates for a moment, biting her lip. She lays the basket at her feet.

"Or else your father will be mad at you?"

Ash freezes for a moment, less than a blink.

"Or else we won't have wood for the fire," he says. He swings the axe with more force than usual, hitting the wood hard, and she jumps at the sound.

She's about to insist—there's quite enough wood for many fires already, she thinks—but she doesn't have the time to ask anything else.

"Hey there, loser!" Gary's voice calls from the street, and Misty curses to herself, because it would have been hard enough already to get something out of him but now it's just impossible. Ash sets down the axe and looks up.

"What do you want?" he sighs.

Gary shrugs. The wolf hunt left him a cut on his cheekbone, right under his left eye. "Just happened to be around here," he says. He looks at Ash: "So you deserted the wolf hunt, huh, pansy? I knew you didn't have the courage to stick around till the end."

"It was my fault," Misty replies, before Ash can do it. "I made him come back. Leave him alone."

Gary raises an eyebrow and his lips curl into a wider smirk. "Right, I forgot he needs his knight in shining armor to defend him," he comments.

"Quit it, Gary," Ash grumbles. He places another log on the wood pile. "It wasn't even the wolf, anyway."

"Well, you certainly weren't so eager to find out," Gary keeps provoking him. Misty shakes her head.

"Stop it!" she insists. She stands. "Want me to give you another punch?"

Gary tilts his head and looks at her. "Try and I'll hit back this time, carrot top," he retorts. Before he's even done saying it Ash straightens his back, drops the axe and throws himself at him, grasping his arm and raising a fist to hir face.

"Touch her and I swear you'll wish you hadn't," he assures him. Gary blinks, surprised, then shoves him away.

"I'm not touching your fiancée, don't worry," he mumbles, wiping his hands on his pants as if he'd touched a pile of dirt. Ash glowers at him, looking almost ready to jump to his throat; but he marches back to the stump instead and grabs the axe to hammer away at the log. Just as surprised as Gary, if not more, Misty can't find anything to say. When it occurs to her that she should retort "I'm not his fiancée" it's been too long already.

"Bah, I wonder why I keep wasting my time with you two," Gary says. He waves a mocking goodbye as he turns: "See you, pansy."

Ash doesn't reply. Misty waits for Gary to be out of sight, then picks up her basket and walks to him, and shakes her head a bit.

"What was _that_?"

He looks up. "What was what?"

She shrugs. "You. Defending me from Gary."

"I was just sick of hearing his crap," he grumbles, looking away again, his face a little red. She hesitates for a moment, then lays a hand on his arm.

"Thank you."

He turns back to her and gives a surprised half-laugh. "For what?"

"Defending me."

"You don't need me to."

"Yeah, I don't. But it was nice, so thank you anyway."

He laughs openly now. "You know, on one hand I'd like to see you and Gary in a fist fight, I'm sure he'd regret ever thinking about it."

"That's for sure," she grins. Then pulls the hood of her cape on. "I have to go now. My father gets worried if I'm not back before dark."

"See you then," he says, the smile still on his lips. She nods: "See you."

—-

Lily plays with Daisy's hairbrush, turning it over and over in her hand. Daisy never took it with her because it's broken: the handle got a crack from being dropped or tossed at some disagreeing sister one time too many and finally fell off, and now it's hard to hold it. After Daisy got married it became Violet's hairbrush, and now it's Lily's. It'll probably be hers in a while.

The wedding will still happen, even if it's been postponed. Lily turns to her, her hair falling on her shoulders in big curls, her eyes a bit red.

"Father will want you to marry as well," she says.

Misty freezes, her feet still halfway on the ladder. "What?" she cries out then, climbing the last couple steps in a hurry. Lily just shrugs.

"Did you hear him say something?" Misty wants to know.

Lily sets Daisy's brush down. "No, but he surely will," she says. "He wouldn't know how to take care of a daughter… without our mother."

"He doesn't need to take care of me, I'm not five," Misty retorts. Her stomach has suddenly crumpled in a tight ball. Lily shrugs her shoulders again, slightly.

"I thought I'd warn you," she tells her, then turns to look at her and arches her eyebrows. "And he won't give your hand to Ash, no use deluding yourself."

"…I don't want him to give my hand to Ash!" But it takes her a moment too many. Her sister's eyebrows rise a little higher.

"If you say so. Good for you then, because he won't," she states. She turns to the window; snow is piling on the sill again. "He'd never want to have anything to do with that bad lot of his father. But maybe he'll give you to Gary. He's from a good family."

Misty's eyes widen. "Don't even think about that."

"I warned you," Lily says. "Maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe I'm not."

Her heart hammering in her chest, Misty sits on the edge of the bed, nearly missing it. The snow keeps falling on the windowsill; downstairs the fire crackles. "You're wrong," she states after a handful of moments. Her sister answers with another shrug.

She can't sleep that night. She tosses in her bed until dawn, while Lily breathes slowly by her side, her eyelashes quivering slightly from time to time. Finally she stands, shivering a little in her nightgown, and walks up and down the room touching all the objects she's known her whole life: the candle holder with nothing but a wax stump stuck at the bottom, the broken hairbrush, the dried flowers woven into crowns, daisies and violets and wild lilies. The round pebble she took from Ash six years ago at the bottom of a drawer. She tries to picture waking up in a room she doesn't know, sleeping with someone she didn't get to choose, and her eyes sting with furious tears. She wipes them away.

—-

She meets the wolf hunter in person two evenings later.

She's late; she met Ash at the market and stopped to talk to him, and only after a while she realized that it was getting dark and she should have been home already. She hurries her steps stumbling on the fresh snow, her basket bumping against her knees, even if by now her father will be angry anyway. She's not expecting someone to call her, and she jumps when she hears the voice.

"It's late for such a young girl to walk around alone."

She spins around. J, as she wants to be called, is standing behind her. On instinct Misty grasps the basket tighter and takes a half-step back.

"I know. I'm late, I was just going home."

The hunter watches her without talking. She can't see her eyes, hidden under the brim of her hat, but she still feels her glance run straight through her almost as if she weren't there, cold and sharp like a blade. She takes another step back, the worn-out straw of the handle of her basket scraping her palm. The hunter takes two steps forward.

"You're the daughter of the woman that was killed by the wolf, aren't you?"

Misty bites her lip hard and then nods. "Yes."

She feels the hunter's eyes scanning her still. She walks back another step and her shoulder blades bump against a wall. Her heart suddenly starts racing, nearly stopping her breath in her throat. The hunter walks closer, reducing the distance between them to two, three steps almost. She's slim and not much taller than she is, and yet she seems to tower over her, her shape dark and looming. Her hands are hidden under her black cape. Misty thinks of the silver sword and shudders a little, wondering if she's holding it now.

"I'll ask you directly," the woman says. She can see her eyes now, looking straight into hers. Silver, like her blade "Do you know anything I should know as well?"

Misty shakes her head so eagerly that her hair flies on her face. "No."

J doesn't flinch. She takes another step and Misty presses her back against the wall, as if she could squeeze through. The hunter raises a hand and takes a strand of her hair in her long fingers.

"You hair is the color of the devil, do you know that?" she says. Misty feels her breath on her skin and holds hers in her chest. "The color of witches."

"My mother's was the same color," she manages to reply. Her voice is shaking. The hunter studies her, unperturbed.

"Maybe that's the reason why the wolf killed her."

Misty blinks. "No," she retorts, more firm now. "My mother was not a witch!"

The woman lets her hair fall, but doesn't draw back. She keeps breathing on her and she feels crushed somehow, like her presence was weighing physically on her chest. Her fingernails trace the curve of her cheek, long and sharp like a wolf's claws.

"Are you sure?" she asks. Suddenly she grasps her chin in her fingers, forcing her to not look away. "You never felt that she was hiding something from you? That there was something you didn't know about her, something she was not telling you? Something strange she said, some strange behaviour, different from the usual? Never, not even once?"

Misty parts her lips to say no, then suddenly remembers her red eyes and her messy braid. How the lines of her face often looked too dark, too deep, as if she were much older or much more sad.

She shakes her head anyway.

The hunter looks at her. "Mh," she says, raising an eyebrow. "Now I might think that your mother was successful in hiding something from you, or that you're trying to hide something from me."

"I'm not hiding anything," Misty retorts. "My mother wasn't a witch, and I'm not either."

She tries to turn away and J's finger clutch her chin tighter, enough to hurt. She leans even closer. "Of course you'd deny it," she exhales.

"I'm not a witch!" she insists. Her voice is trembling again now, harder, and she presses her lips together to avoid crying, trying to free herself from her grasp. The basket slips from her fingers, falling on the snow with a soft _thump_.

"If you're lying to me," the woman hisses, not letting go, "I will find out and make you wish you'd never been born. And I will find out, be sure of it, even if it means walking over the dead bodies of every person you care about, and yours as well."

"I'm not lying," Misty says one more time, the _not_ coming sharp out of her throat. Her heart is hammering. "Please let me go. I have to go home."

The hunter watches her for a moment still, then lets go. Misty turns away immediately, breathing in short bursts.

"I'll keep my eyes on you," J promises her, ice cold. "If you're hiding something you'll regret thinking you could fool me."

"I said I'm not hiding anything," she insists. Her eyes burn and she wipes them with the back of her hand, furious at her tears, then bends down to pick up her basket. Her fingers are shaking as she grasps the handle.

J turns her back on her. The heavy fabric of her cape whishes around her, swelling from a gust of wind. "We'll see," she says. Misty watches her walk away and only when she disappears behind a corner she dares to stop looking.

It's dark. Her father will be furious. She wipes her eyes again and hurries her steps, starting to run.

—-

She doesn't tell her father about what happened, nor Lily, but she tells Ash the next day. He sits down next to her on the steps as she talks, frowning.

"She seriously scared me," she says, looking at her feet. She grasps the fabric of her skirt and shakes her head. "She threatened me. She'll kill me if she thinks I'm a witch."

"She won't," he assures her. "C'mon, she'd have no reason to suspect anything like that!"

Misty keeps staring at the ground. She reaches for her hair, almost without realizing it, clutching the ends on her shoulder. "My hair," she whispers. She hesitates for a moment, then adds: "And my mother."

"She wouldn't have had anything to suspect about her either," Ash retorts. Misty looks up.

"I don't know for sure," she says. Her voice stumbles a little. "I don't know why the wolf killed her. What if she was really hiding something? There has to be a reason why she was outside that night, she knew it was the wolf's night."

"Well, I'm sure it had nothing to do with witchcraft or any of that nonsense," he insists. He sounds certain of it; much more than she is.

She wipes the corner of her eye with the hem of her cape.

Ash lays a hand on her arm. "Hey, you're not crying, right?" he says. "It's all going to be fine. I'm sure."

"What if it's not?" she retorts. "What if she really think I'm a witch?"

He doesn't answer straight away. He looks at her for a moment first, then shrugs. "She won't hurt you anyway," he assures her. "I won't let her."

The start of a laugh escapes Misty's lips, but it leaves behind a bitter taste. "_You_ won't let her?" she repeats. "And what are you going to do? Fight her and all of her soldiers with your axe?"

She doesn't add "you'd only get yourself killed if you tried", but she thinks it. Ash frowns again.

"I don't know, but I won't let her anyway," he states. He puffs his cheeks: "She'd better never even come near you again."

Misty stares at him, not sure if she should thank him or call him an idiot. In the end she just shakes her head.

"Don't do anything stupid," she sighs. "That woman is seriously scary."

"I know, I saw her yesterday," Ash says. "She was just across the street, she didn't talk to me or anything, but I got the creeps anyway."

"Well, just don't do anything," Misty insists. He doesn't reply; he looks away at nothing in particular and purses his lips, thoughtful. Misty bumps his arm slightly. "Are you listening to me? I'm serious. Stay away from her."

He turns to her and smiles: "Don't worry. I won't do anything."

But it's an unconvincing smile, hiding something else underneath, and for a moment she thinks of grasping his shirt and holding tight to make sure he'll stay there, and not get into who knows what trouble. She feels stupid, though, and so she just hugs her knees instead, fingers digging into the fabric of her skirt again. The wind blows strands of her hair on her face, too red, too striking, witch-hair; and she pulls her hood up to hide it. She remembers her mother's watery eyes, her red braid undone in places. Lily said she had been somewhere.

Ash looks at the street and frowns, lost in his thoughts again.


	5. Chapter 5

**5.**

When she knocks on his door, the next day, no one comes to open. There's snow on the wood pile and on the stump, as if no one touched anything since this morning. Misty bites her lip a little, puzzled, then knocks again. Still nothing. She's rather sure no one is there by now, because doors and windows are locked and the house is dark and even if she listens closely she doesn't hear voices or footsteps, but she waits a little longer all the same, even if snow is starting to pile on her shoulders and on the hood of her cape.

Nothing. She walks down the steps where Ash sat by her side yesterday and reaches the window, trying to peek inside. She can't see anything, and she presses her nose to the glass until it hurts, annoyed, but she still can only see dark.

"Haven't you heard?"

She turns, her heart jumping in her chest, so abruptly that her feet nearly slip on the snow. She grasps the windowsill with a shaky hand. Gary is standing behind her.

"Heard what?"

"The hunter got Ash arrested."

Misty's eyes widen, and her breath hitches in her throat. "What…?" she manages to stammer, after a moment. "Why?!"

Gary shrugs. He's not smiling, not even that obnoxious half grin that usually makes her want to slap him. "Don't know, I wasn't there. They say that he went up to her and threatened her or something like that."

"Why— " she starts asking, then freezes. She doesn't need to ask, she knows already. She presses her hand on her mouth to smother a cry, only managing to turn it into a choked whimper. Gary frowns.

"Do you know something?"

"He did it to protect me!" she cries out. She runs back towards the street. Gary stops her when she brushes past him, grabbing her arm.

"To protect you?" he repeats, shaking his head. "What are you talking about? Are you crazy?"

Misty yanks her arm away. "Let me go!" she almost shouts, and he does, but follows her when she starts running again.

"What are you talking about? To protect you from what?"

She stops. "I told him that that woman threatened me," she says. Her voice is trembling. "Ash said that he wouldn't let her hurt me. He was trying to stop her!"

"Why would she threaten you?" Gary insists, at a loss still. She clenches her fists.

"Why would you care?!"

Gary doesn't answer. Shakes her head, then turns and starts walking, fast. She's running again after just a couple steps. He keeps following her.

"Where are you going?"

"I want to see him!"

"They won't let you."

"Then I want to _try_ to see him! Why the hell do you care? Stop following me!"

Gary gives an irritated sigh. "I'm trying to help you, will you calm the hell down?!"

"Help me do what?" Misty retorts. Her heart is hammering in her head, almost hurting. "You don't care about Ash! I bet you're happy about this!"

He doesn't answer immediately. He shakes his head again, then tries to stop her one more time and she draws back as if his fingers burned, then shoves him away. Gary lets her go and raises his hands, his palms facing her like a gesture of surrender, and sighs again furiously. "Alright. Have it your way, what do I care."

"Good," she snaps. Without wasting any more time she turns to start running again, not slowing down even when a stab of pain in her side makes her eyes fill with tears. She doubles over pressing her hand on it, her legs wobbly at the knees. Her heart races faster than ever, a painful knot in her chest, heavy as a stone. Stupid, she thinks with every step, stupid, stupid, I told you not to do it. She thinks of the hunter and the sharp silver blade of her sword and her threats, and tries to run even faster. She bumps into someone and a voice cries out "watch your steps!".

She knows where the prisons are, even if she never dares go that way, and her stomach crumples when the low, dark stone building takes shape in front of her. For a moment her legs feel about to give and she stops, with snow in her hair and her heart about to explode. Two of J's soldier are guarding the entrance. Their eyes follow her as she walks closer.

"This is no place for a little girl."

"I want— " she starts, and then she has to stop to catch her breath. "I want to see a prisoner."

One of the guards looks at her for a moment. Then bursts into laughter.

"Get lost, little girl."

"Please," she insists. "Please, I just want to see him, just for a moment."

The guard nods to his partner. "Send her away," he says, and the other grabs her arm and attempts to yank her away.

"Please!" Misty repeats. She tries to fight and her eyes fill with tears. "His name is Ash. He's my age. He's been here since…" she realizes she doesn't know and shakes her head, "…since this morning, I think. Please. I just want to see him for a moment, please."

"Shut up," the guard growls. He tugs at her arm harder and a jolt of pain shoots through her shoulder. She keeps resisting still.

"Please," she says one more time. A sob escapes from her throat, painful like something tearing. "Just a moment. Then I'll go, I swear it."

The man rolls his eyes. "So be it, then," he concedes. "A minute, not more. Then I want you gone."

"Thank you," she whispers. The guard says nothing.

Inside the walls are dark and suffocating. She feels about to be crushed and wraps her arms around herself, struggling a bit to breathe. It's cold. She keeps her head lowered as the guard escorts her to the cell, looking up only when she hears him stop and say "remember you have a minute".

Ash is sitting on the stone floor, his knees drawn to his chest and his back to the wall, but he stands up as soon as he sees her. "Misty," he says, his hands grasping the iron bars. She takes the last two or three steps in a rush.

"You're an idiot!" she shouts. He's got a bruise on his right cheek and a split lip, blood dried on his chin. She closes her hands on his, tight. "What the hell were you thinking?!"

"I was just warning her to leave you alone," Ash grumbles. He looks down. She shakes her head, tries to speak again and another sob chokes her. She breathes in, barely managing to.

"Are you alright…?"

"Yeah," Ash assures her. "It's nothing. They won't do anything, I'll get released soon, don't worry."

"You're an idiot," she says again. She sniffles and shakes her head again: "I told you to stay away from her!"

"I'll be fine," he promises. Misty grasps his hands tighter.

"Time's up," the guard growls. When she still doesn't move he grabs her by the waist and picks her off the ground, tearing her hands away from Ash's in less than a moment. He looks at her as she struggles in vain, his hands still clutching the bars, his teeth sinking into his lip; and for a moment she thinks she saw him tremble. She can't be sure, though, because the guard hauls her away and she can't see him at all anymore.

"You saw him," the man says, letting her go only when they're back outside. "Now get lost."

Misty nods and takes a trembling step back. Her legs feel strange, unsteady. She's not sure they'll hold her all the way back home, so she only walks until she turns the corner and then leans her back against the wall, curling up around her knees. Snow soaks through her dress. She smothers her sobs into her skirt, thinking the same thought over and over still: stupid, stupid, stupid. I told you. Now I'll lose you too.

—-

The tavern J the hunter is residing at is dark, the windows barely lit by trembling orange candlelight. Misty clenches her fist, the coins she took from under the floorboard pressing against her palm. She traces the border with her fingertips, hesitating. Her father will be furious when he finds out she sneaked out of the house so late at night.

She walks up to one of the soldiers with her breath stuck in her chest. He gives her an impatient glare, and finally barks "what do you want?" when she still doesn't speak.

Misty swallows, clutching her coins tighter. Her hand shakes. "I… I have some informations for the wolf hunter," she lies, trying to keep her voice from trembling as well. She's not entirely successful.

The soldier looks at her. "Speak, then."

She shakes her head. "I want to see her. I'll speak to her."

"She won't be happy to be disturbed."

"Doesn't matter," Misty insists. The soldier stares at her for a long moment still. "Walk," he says finally, turning to escort her to the quarters. The shape of her coins dug a circle into her palm. She holds her breath as the man opens the door and grasps her arm to shove her inside.

J looks up from her dinner and stares at her with disdain, but without too much surprise, or so she thinks. "I hope this is important."

Misty yanks her arm away from the soldier's grip. She takes a step forward, then another one. She swallows again, her mouth dry: "I'm here to negotiate Ash's release."

The hunter stares at her for a moment still. Then throws her head back and bursts into laughter.

"I hope you're kidding, young lady," she says, looking back at her. Misty shakes her head.

"Listen to me, please. I have some money."

She walks to the table, quick, and sets down the three coins immediately drawing her hand back afterwards. They clink slightly against the wood. It's all she had: she saved them over the years, hidden under a loose floorboard between her bed and the wall so her sisters wouldn't find them, and she broke two fingernails to get them out because her hands were shaking and she couldn't get a steady grasp.

J looks at the coins for a moment, then at her. Without a word, she stretches out her hand and sweeps them off the table. Misty jumps.

"What use do you think I would have for your money?" the woman hisses, then curls her lips in a grin. "His life can't be worth that much, anyway, if you thought that would be enough."

"It's all I had," Misty whispers. She feels stupid and her eyes suddenly sting with tears. "Please. I can give you more than money. It's me you want, right? I'm the witch."

"I find him more useful right now," the hunter says. "I can tell you're ready to lie. You'd make up anything I want to hear to convince me to release your… what's he to you? Your fiancé?"

Misty shakes her head. "Only a friend."

"You sure trouble yourself a lot for someone who's only a friend," J comments, raising her eyebrows a little. "Listen to me, young lady. Your _friend_ is where he his because he publicly assaulted and threatened me. He's the only one responsible for his own actions, and for their consequences as well."

She shakes her head again. "It's my fault. I talked to him about what you told me and he tried to defend me. It's my fault. Please, release him and take me instead."

J looks away, uninterested. "Take her away," she says, and the soldier's hand claws at her arm again, trying to drag her towards the door.

Misty tries to break free. "No, please! I'll tell you everything I know! I'll tell you about my mother!"

"Take her away," J says again, louder. The soldier pushes her out of the room. He has to drag her through the corridor as she struggles and tries to bury her nails in his hands; and finally shoves her in the snow.

"Don't bother coming back," he growls. Misty props herself up on her arms, her hair sticking to her cheek, wet and freezing.

Her eyes burn. "Get lost," the soldier adds. She stands, but her knees are shaking a little and her vision is clouded. She has to blink a few times before she recognizes the silhouette walking towards her and the tavern.

"Gary…?"

She walks to him, frowning. She stops in front of him and shakes her head.

"What are you doing here?"

Gary looks at her. He's holding a leather bag, the jingling sound of money coming from it when it bumps against his knee. "The same thing you are, I guess."

"I thought you didn't care," she says, confused. Gary shrugs and walks around her.

"You thought wrong."

Misty follows him. "I already tried offering her money," she says. He looks at her and arches an eyebrow.

"I think I have more than you do. No offence," he replies, then stops. "I'll try, alright? You wait here."

She nods. She lags behind as Gary starts walking again, wrapping herself tighter in her cape.

She waits for what feels like hours, thinking that by now her father ought to have realized that she's not home, and how angry he'll be when she comes back. Maybe he went out to look for her. She bites her lip, then raises a hand to wipe her eyes, still stinging with tears a little. After a while she starts feeling seriously cold, and rubs her arms trying to warm herself up.

Gary comes back alone, with no need for a soldier to shove him outside. Misty's feet feel glued to the ground. Only when he's close enough for her to see that his hands are empty she manages to take a few steps forward, holding her breath.

"Well?" she wants to know. He sighs and shakes his head.

"Didn't work," he says, and it feels like a punch in the gut. "She said she wants to question him. Then she'll decide if she's going to release him or not." He's silent for a moment, then looks back at the tavern entrance for a moment and scowls: "She took the money, though."

Misty presses a hand to her temples. "This is my fault," she whispers. "I shouldn't have told him anything. I should have known he'd do something stupid. If that woman kills him it will be my fault."

Gary's hands grasp her arms. Normally she'd push him away; but now she just lowers hers and looks at him, biting her lip.

"She won't kill him," he says. "His only accusation is for threatening her. She doesn't think he has something to do with the wolf or any of that bullshit. She'll release him."

But he threatened her to protect a witch, Misty thinks, but she doesn't say it out loud. Instead she retorts: "You don't know".

He doesn't reply.

Misty draws back. "I have to go home."

Gary says nothing for a moment. "Want me… to walk you there?" he asks in the end, uncomfortable. She shakes her head.

"I know the way."

She pulls her hood on. She turns to leave, then stops and looks back at him. "Oh, and Gary…" she starts, then hesitates: "Thank you."

"I didn't do anything," he cuts short. Misty shrugs a little.

"Thank you for trying anyway."

—-

She walks back to the prisons the next day, holding a blanket in her arms.

Her father gave her the second slap of her life when she came back last night; she had to plead with him to be allowed to step outside today. One of the guards watches her as she walks closer and she clutches the blanket a little tighter, wishing she could disappear behind it. Maybe that way she could walk inside unseen.

"I thought I already told you to get lost," the guard says. Misty presses her lips together for a moment.

"I want to see Ash," she says, staring back at him. The guard gives her a grim look.

"No," is all he replies.

Misty bites the inside of her cheek. She was expecting it, and she also expects that insisting will be no use, but she tries anyway: "Please. Just for a minute."

"Get lost," the man commands. She stands still, and tries to hand him the blanket.

"Can you give this to him?" she asks. The guard takes it from her hands, looking at her as if he'd never seen anything this ridiculous. He doesn't even wait for her to turn away to carelessly toss it in the snow.

"Now get lost," he repeats. She takes a half-step back, not sure if she should try to insist, then decides that it would probably be useless and turns to leave. She buries her fingernails into her palms until they hurt.

—-

She hasn't slept in two nights. She tosses in her blankets with her eyes wide open, her head hurting; and she can't stop wondering if he's still in one piece, and what that woman did to him, what she's doing to him right now while she stares at the wall. Her eyes burn as if they were full of sand, but it's worse if she closes them, because she can't stop imagining the ways the hunter might have tried to force Ash to talk. She sits up, leaning her back against the wall; next to her Lily is asleep or pretending. Suddenly furious, for a moment she thinks of shaking her awake. She presses her hands on her eyes, breathing in.

Behind the closed window the moon is still a thin slice in the night sky.

It's almost dawn when she finally falls asleep. She dreams of Ash, and J and her silver sword, and jolts awake with her heart throbbing in her head, barely managing to hold back a cry. Lily grumbles something, annoyed, and turns to the other side. The light from the window is still a pale blue-white, the sun only halfway risen.

She grasps her blanket, so tight her fingers start to feel numb after a while, and tries to will her eyes to stay open.

—-

Her nightmare doesn't come true. When Gary tells her that Ash was released, three days later, for a handful of moments she can't believe it and just stares at him, her breath caught in her chest. Part of her mind was already sure that she would never see him again; now she can't quite wrap it around Gary's words.

"Are you serious…?" her throat feels as dry as dust. Gary looks at her.

"I thought you knew already," he says, and she shakes her head and thinks that if she'd known already she wouldn't have been there, she would have been with him

"Is he alright?"

Gary shrugs a little. "I don't know, I haven't seen him," he replies. "I just heard it. They released him this morning."

"And you're telling me now?!" she retorts. She doesn't even wait for an answer, she drops the basket with the flour she bought at the market in front of the door so carelessly that it nearly spills over and runs back to the street. "I'm telling you now because I heard it just now," Gary says when she runs past him. She doesn't slow down.

Her house and Ash's aren't that far apart, but she's out of breath anyway when she gets there and her heart is racing. It hammers in her ears drowning out everything else. She stops and tries to breathe; the front yard is empty. There's still snow on the stump. The wood in the pile is probably soaked by now, it won't burn. Why didn't his father bring it inside? She hesitates with her hands on her knees, then runs to knock on the door.

Ash's mother comes to open. Misty always knew her as a kind, amiable woman, but now she barely smiles. "Misty," she says, not too surprised. There are dark circles under her eyes.

Misty bites her lip. "Hello, I… I heard that Ash was released."

The woman nods. "He was," she confirms, but doesn't ask her if she wants to see him and doesn't invite her in. Almost without intending to Misty stands on tiptoes a little, trying to see behind her, but the house is dark.

"Can I see him?" she asks. Ash's mother says nothing for a moment, then shakes her head.

"He's resting."

Misty frowns a little, puzzled. "I won't disturb him, I'll leave in a minute. I just want to see him and know if he's alright."

"Not now," the woman insists, kind but unmovable. "You can come back tomorrow, or in a couple days."

She bites her lip harder, unconvinced still. "But is he alright…?"

She thinks she hears a moment of hesitation before the woman answers: "He's alright, yes."

For a second, the thought of shoving her aside to run into the house crosses her mind, but she doesn't dare to. She draws blood from the lip she keeps chewing at. "Can't I see him at all? Not even for a moment?"

"Not today," the woman answers, and then waits for her to leave. Misty looks at her shoes.

"Could you tell him that I was here?" she asks. "Not right now, I mean. When he wakes up. If he's sleeping."

Ash's mother nods. "I'll tell him," she assures her, and then says "see you soon, Misty" and closes the door in her face without another word. Misty jumps at the _thump_ of wood hitting wood and stares at the closed door, almost in disbelief. She lingers on the stone steps for a while, shivering from the cold. The house is silent.

She walks back there one more time before dark, hoping she'll find him outside. Lily got mad about the flour, because it got wet in the snow, but she barely listened to her ranting. There's still no one outside of Ash's house. The snow on the stump and the pile is still untouched.

—-

The next day she finally finds him. She sees him from afar, a silhouette bent over the wood pile, and almost trips on the hem of her skirt as she starts running.

"Ash!" she calls; and he turns slowly, propping himself against the wood as if straightening his back took too much effort; and gives her a strained smile.

When she throws her arms around him he jumps a little like she hurt him somehow. She lets go and looks at him, frowning. The bruise on his cheek is a faint yellowish shadow.

"Are you alright?" she asks. He nods, but he does it too quickly, still smiling that same forced smile.

"Yeah, of course," he says. But he's pale as a sheet, and Misty shakes her head a bit.

"What happened?" she wants to know. "What did she tell you?"

What did she _do_ to you, is what she actually wants to ask. Ash shrugs. "She just questioned me. I guess in the end I convinced her I wasn't hiding that I'm the werewolf or who knows what else."

"Thank goodness," she replies with a sigh. Ash cracks another smile and then turns away, leaning a hand against the pile again. He removes some of the wood to see if there's any that's still dry and clenches his teeth every time he bends down. Misty watches him, blinking.

"Are you alright?" she asks again.

"I said yes," he answers, maybe sharper than he'd meant to. He notices, looks back and smiles again. "I'm alright," he assures her, before turning back to the wood.

Misty hesitates. Then raises one hand and lays it on his back. Gently, not even pushing at all, but still he barely manages to hold back a groan and staggers forward, his knees nearly giving. She draws back.

"What did they do to you?" she whispers. Ash looks down.

"I'm fine," he insists, and she sees his shoulders shake slightly.

She walks closer, slowly. She lays her hands on his waists and he shivers harder. When she pulls up his shirt she feels sick: his back is covered in bruises, spreading blue and purple and black on his spine, his ribs, even the back of his neck, his hair only barely hiding them. Ash stands still for a moment, then draws back, yanking his shirt from her hands.

She can't say anything. She can't even breathe, all air hitched painfully in her chest. She shakes her head, parting her lips with no sound coming out.

"Who did that…?" she finally manages to ask.

Ash doesn't answer.

"Was it the hunter?" Misty insists. He picks up a log from the pile, without looking at her, and places it on the stump. "What did she do to you?"

He says nothing. He struggles to raise his axe and she shakes her head again.

"Why are you working like this? You should be resting…"

Then suddenly something clicks into place and she presses her hands on her mouth, her eyes widening. She thinks about all the times she saw bruises on his face and he told her he fell, that time she found him sitting on the steps with a bleeding nose, years ago, the evening she followed him on the wolf hunt. She swallows, her throat as dry as paper.

"It wasn't the hunter, right?" she whispers. Her voice shakes. "It was your father."

Ash says nothing still. He sets the axe down.

"It's true, isn't it?" she insists.

Silence for a few more moments. "I deserved it," Ash finally says, without turning to look at her. She breathes in, sharp.

"You didn't deserve anything!" she retorts, her eyes wider than ever. She walks a step closer and lays a hand on his arm. He jumps a little, not for the pain this time. When she takes another step she can see his eyes glistening with tears just slightly.

"I came here yesterday," she says. "Your mother told me you were resting."

"I couldn't get up," he whispers. His teeth sink hard into his bottom lip.

Misty can't say anything. She wants to pull him close and hug him tight, but she's afraid she'd hurt him, so she draws closer and gently wraps her arms around him. Ash presses his lip together to smother a sob.

"It's not the first time, right?" she asks. Ash shrugs a bit.

"It's the first time he beat me this hard."

"Why did you never tell me anything?"

He looks at her for a moment, then gently frees himself from her hug. "Didn't want you to get worried," he says. He picks up the axe and winces, pressing a hand to his ribs.

"You should rest," she tells him, soft. He shakes his head in a hurry.

"He'll get even angrier if I don't do anything."

Misty thinks about it for a moment. "Is he here now?" she asks then.

Ash turns to look at her. "No, he went out somewhere. Why? You don't want to tell him something, right?"

"I don't," she assures him, and reaches for the axe. "Give me that. I'll take care of the wood for a while."

He blinks. "Don't be stupid," he comments. Misty frowns, leans over and takes it from his hand.

"You won't be able to," he insists, puffing his cheek. She gives him the eye, weighs the axe in her hands and then lowers it on the log in a tentative blow. Her first try only cuts halfway through, the hit echoing in her arms and her shoulders, and she has to wrestle the blade free because it got stuck; the second time she manages to split it in two.

"See," she says, satisfied, a little out of breath. She turns back and smiles. "Sit down. I'll do it for a while."

Ash makes a disgruntled face, but he must be really hurting, because he does sit down on the steps. A groan escapes his throat as he does.

"Don't get hurt," he tells her, worried. She rolls her eyes: "I won't."

Her arms start hurting after a while, but it doesn't matter, she tells herself as she blows her hair away from her face. It would hurt him a lot more. At leas she's not covered in bruises.

"What did the hunter ask you?" she inquires after a while. Ash hesitates for a moment.

"She asked about you," he says in the end. "And why I wanted so much to defend you."

She stops for a second and wipes sweat from her forehead. "And what di you tell her?"

It takes him a little while again. "That I care about you. A lot. And I didn't want her to hurt you."

Misty turns to look at him. She can't say anything.

He cracks a smile. Then takes in a long breath and stands. "I think my father will be back soon," he says. "Better if you give that back."

She sighs. "Alright." Ash walks to her and takes the axe. She picks up her cape, that she had taken off because it was hampering her, and watches him as she puts it back on. He winces nearly every time he moves, still pale as a ghost. _I deserved it_. After a while she feels tears stinging at the back of her eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

**6.**

As she rushes back home, two evenings later, she keeps getting the feeling that she's being followed. She tries to shrug it away and walks faster, because she's late again: she helped Ash with the wood until he pointed out (more than once) that it was getting dark. But the feeling stays.

She's almost home when suddenly she stops and spins around.

J is standing in the deserted street, maybe twenty steps away from her. Behind her are two of her soldiers. Misty jumps and instinctively takes a couple steps back, and sees the woman's lips begin to curl in a grin.

"Why such a hurry?" the hunter asks, watching her. "Don't you have some time to talk to me?"

"I have to go home," Misty replies. She walks back another step and the woman draws closer, raising an eyebrow.

"I could assume that you're resisting, if you refuse to answer me," she says. She nods slightly towards the two soldiers. "And that could be enough to arrest you."

Misty presses her lips together, her mouth suddenly dry. Her heart starts racing. She tries to stand still when J takes a few more steps forward, however.

"You didn't want to listen when I came to talk to you," she protests.

"Nothing you could have told me then would have been of any value," the hunter says. "You'd have made up anything and swore on the Bible that it was the truth to have your beloved friend back. I could see that clearly when you came to me. Until then I was thinking that I could use him to get the truth out of you, but when I saw how desperate you were I knew that until I had him I could not trust any word from your mouth. Why else do you think I let him go?"

She swallows and says nothing. The hunter waits a few moments, looking at her, then adds: "I'm sure you know something, little witch, something true, but I'll have to use other ways to find out what it is."

"I'm not hiding anything," Misty retorts. She forces herself not to look away, but her voice trembles a little. "You're right, I was lying when I came to you. I just wanted you to release Ash. I didn't have anything true to tell you, I was just going to make up something."

"I think you may be lying to me now," the woman says sharply. She walks closer; her black cape swells in the wind. She stops in front of her: Misty clenches her fists, her heart running so fast that it's hard to breathe.

"I think you'd tell me the truth if I hurt you. I think you'd have _a lot_ to tell me."

Misty swallows again. "I have nothing to tell you," she insists. J studies her, with eyes made of ice.

"We'll see." She nods to the two men behind her. "Handcuff her."

Without thinking, Misty turns around and starts running. She slams into someone after only a few steps, and she screams and draws back, ready to bolt in the opposite direction; but before she can do it an arm tightens around her waists. Not to hold her, though: to protect her.

"What the hell do you want from my daughter?" her father's voice growls. Misty's eyes widen, and instinctively she clings to the rough fabric of his shirt. He pulls her closer.

"I have reasons to believe that she's hiding something from me," the hunter says, calm.

"And what, pray tell?" her father retorts. Misty turns back shaking. J looks at them.

"She should be the one to answer," she states. "Why do you think the wolf chose your wife of all people? Why would she have been outside that very night?"

"I don't know, and my daughter certainly doesn't either," he says. The hunter doesn't flinch.

"I believe she does. I believe the wolf didn't kill a woman, I believe it killed a witch. And I believe your daughter may know something about it."

Misty can feel her father stiffen, furious.

"My wife was not a witch."

The hunter raises her eyebrows. "And you knew her so well that you have no idea what she was doing outside on the wolf's night."

"I knew her better than anyone." He brings a hand to his side and Misty sees it grasp the handle of his hunting knife, hanging from his belt. "Misty, go home."

"But— " she tries. Her father stops her.

"Go!" he says again, sharper than the blade of his knife, and shoves her to the side. She starts running and stumbles after a few steps, falling on her hands and knees in the snow. She stands back up, quick, stepping on the hem of her dress and almost falling again, and runs home with her breath stuck in her chest. The door is open when she pushes it.

"What's happening?" Lily wants to know, her eyes wide.

Misty tries to catch her breath. "She wants to arrest me," she manages to gasp. She rushes to the window, barely hearing her sister crying out "what? Why?" behind her. She can't see anything from there, it's on the wrong side, even leaning over the sill does nothing.

She bites the inside of her cheek, panting still. "She thinks our mother was a witch."

"What?" Lily repeats. Misty doesn't turn to look at her, even if she still can't see anything outside.

"She thinks I'm one too."

Lily is silent for a second. "…What?!" she says then for the third time, almost in hysterics. Misty turns back for a moment, shakes her head, looks back at the window again.

"I don't know," she answers. She tightens shaking fingers on the sill. "She's completely insane. She scares the hell out of me."

Her sister says nothing. She walks closer and stares at the empty street with her, hands clasped on her chest. Misty tries leaning farther; wind blows her hair on her face, cold and stinging.

She still can't see.

They both jump when the door burst open. Misty spins around: her father walks in, his face dark, and slams it shut. He looks at her.

"Did that woman already threaten you before?"

She hesitates, then nods. She bites her lip. "Once. A few evenings ago."

"If she comes near you again I want you to tell me immediately," her father says. Misty nods again, still trembling a little.

"Yes, sir."

"And for the last time, I want you home before dark."

Misty lowers her head. "I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't realize it was already so late. It won't happen again."

"It better," her father grumbles. He throws the knife on the table; the blade is clean.

—-

She sees her again the next afternoon and lowers her head as she hurries her steps, trying to hide under the hood of her cape. It's no use, of course, because with that striking red the hunter would recognize her anyway, but she's not looking at her this time. She realizes it as she rushes past her: the hunter is watching Ash.

She tries to keep walking as if she hadn't seen her, but she can't stop herself from hurrying her steps even more and she's almost running when she reaches Ash's house. He looks up, frowning a little.

"Misty? Everything alright?"

She nods, then stops and shakes her head. "That woman is watching you," she tells him. She's about to add "don't look", but he's already starting to turn before she can do it. He sighs.

"I know," he says. "She's been around here since this morning."

"What does she want?"

Ash shrugs. "I have no idea." He stoops down to pick up a stack of wood, breathing in slowly; he's still wincing a little every time he moves. "My father saw her too."

She rushes to take some of the wood from his arms. "Wait, let me help you."

"I can do it myself, I'm fine," he protests, pouting a bit.

"Your back still hurts," she retorts. "Are we bringing this inside?"

He rolls his eyes and nods. As they walk towards the house she hesitates, biting her lip. "Did she hurt you?" she asks in the end, thinking of what she told her: _I think you'd tell me the truth if I hurt you._ "The hunter, I mean. Before she let you go."

Ash stops for a moment. "Not as much as my father did," he cuts short, then walks through the door. He doesn't add anything else.

She follows him and doesn't dare to ask anymore. Ash bends down to leave the wood next to the fireplace, then props himself against the wall to stand back up and stretches his arms above his head, groaning a little. Misty sets her half down and brushes her hands on her skirt; then turns to look at him.

"How are you feeling now?"

"I'm alright," he replies with another shrug, and she's sure he's lying. "Come."

They walk back outside. She's silent for a moment while he picks up the axe again, then says: "Promise me you won't do anything stupid".

"Anything like what?" he wants to know. She stares at him: "You _know_".

Ash looks back at her. "Is there a reason why I should?"

"Promise first," she insists. He sighs.

"I promise," he gives up. "What happened?"

She bites her lip. "The hunter wanted to arrest me."

"What?!" he cries out. She sees his hand tighten around the handle of the axe and shakes her head.

"Yesterday she was following me when I walked home. She told his soldiers to handcuff me. My father stopped her."

Ash's glance darts to where the hunter is standing. A moment later he's marching in that direction, still holding the axe, and just in time Misty manages to run after him and grab his arm.

"You said you wouldn't do anything stupid!"

He turns. There's such a fury burning in his eyes that for a moment she's almost taken aback, and loosens her grip a little.

"She mustn't even try to come close to you," he says, his voice swollen with rage. The flame is still burning, but he lowers his arm, resting the blade of the axe against the ground. Misty squeezes his arm gently.

"I'm fine," she assures him. "She didn't even touch me."

He glares towards the woman again; then turns back to her, and his eyes are about the same as always, if a bit disgruntled.

"I'll walk you home later," he states. She shakes her head.

"There's no need to. I'll be fine."

"I will anyway," he insists, and she rolls her eyes with a sigh.

"If that helps you sleep better," she says, but then drops her act and adds: "Thank you."

Ash cracks a half-smile and walks back to the stump. Misty looks at him for a couple moments.

"Have you seen Gary?"

He puffs his cheeks: "Yeah, he came here earlier today and asked if I had any more great ideas like getting arrested. Why?"

She thinks of when she met him by the tavern, with money to plead with the hunter for his release, and blinks surprised. "Nothing," she says. "I was just thinking…"

"Thinking what?" Ash asks, when she stops. "Oh, I forgot, he also said I'm a loser, a pansy and an idiot, and probably something else I forgot."

Misty says nothing. When Ash asks her why she wanted to know she shrugs, and forces her lips in a slightly bewildered smile.

"Just curious."

She sits on the steps and watches him work, hugging her knees. From time to time she sees him stop for a second, to rub his neck or stretch the muscles of his back, but he's careful not to let a single groan or whimper escape his throat as he does. I can see it, stupid, she thinks with a sigh; you don't need to say anything, I can see it anyway.

After a while she looks up: the hunter is still standing across from the house. For a moment she's almost certain their eyes met, even if she's too far away to really tell, and a shudder runs down her back.

—-

When she walks to the market the next morning there's a knot of people in the street. They whisper huddled together, exchanging furtive glances, as if plotting something in secret. Misty hesitates and then walks closer, curious and a little worried, and the whispers grow louder: she hears the word "wolf" once or twice, and immediately she holds her breath, clasping the handle of her empty basket.

"What happened?"

There's silence and then some more whispering. "In the town square," someone answers; a brown-haired girl looks at her with wide blue eyes, her hands knotted together. "They say it was the wolf."

Misty's blood runs cold. A moment later she's elbowing her way through the small crowd, thinking of red stains on the snow, thinking of red hair and pleading white fingers.

Someone calls her—"Hey! Wait!"; she doesn't listen. She runs, her basket bumping against her leg and her breath stuck in her lungs, and she knows what will be waiting for her in the square: there will be Ash lying in the snow this time. She sees it so clearly that she almost can't see where she's going, and almost slams into someone more than once. Snow in his black hair, blood staining his shoulder and his cheek, his hands frozen still. Stop, she tries to tell herself; stop, stop here, don't look, but her legs won't listen. She screams at them to stop and yet she's still running.

She's out of breath when she finally reaches the town square. She looks around with her stomach in a knot: there's more people here. They're crowded around something, a fearful, bewildered silence spread over them.

Now her feet won't listen to her again, but this time she cannot pull them from the ground. She stands at the edge of the square for who knows how long before finally managing to take another step forward, her knees trembling. She squeezes through the crowd as her heart hammers in her temples, drowning out every other sound.

She's not expecting what her eyes see.

Lying on the snow, at the center of the square, is the body of the wolf hunter.

She blinks, and for a moment she can't quite wrap her mind around it. She looks at the black cape now white with frost; at her open eyes, staring at the sky, her throat torn and red, and they look like loose pieces that can't quite fit together. There's a pool of blood crowning her shoulders and her head, a violent red blotch. Her hands are twisted like claws on the snow, empty.

She shakes her head. "What happened?" she asks in a whisper to the person standing next to her. "Who did this?"

"The wolf, they say," the person answers. Misty turns. The voice belongs to a woman she vaguely knows, a friend of her mother.

"But it wasn't the wolf's night!"

"The wolf in its human shape," the woman says. She presses her lips together in a thin line.

Misty looks at the body again. The cut on her neck is sharp, clean. It looks like it was done with a blade, not the teeth or the claws of some animal. Suddenly she thinks of her father's hunting knife, then Ash's axe, and her stomach turns over. She has to take her eyes off her and draw back, one hand pressed to her mouth.

She breathes in when she's out of the crowd. All she can see from there is the hem of the hunter's black cape. She takes another step back, then turns and walks away, quick. Thoughts rush through her head like a wave.

She needs to see Ash. She tells herself it's to ask him if he knows already, if the news got to him, and yet as she half-walks, half-runs to his house there's another question lying underneath: did you do it? Please tell me you didn't. She tries to convince herself that Ash would never hurt anyone and almost manages to; but she thinks of the flame she saw in his eyes yesterday when she told him that the hunter wanted to arrest her, of his hand grasping the axe, and she's not as sure anymore.

Ash's front yard is empty. He's not outside working on the wood yet; when she walks closer, though, she sees the axe planted in the stump. There's a thin layer of frost on the handle, and she lets out a relieved breath: it's still where Ash left it yesterday, before he walked her home. No one used it last night. She shakes her head, feeling stupid for thinking that Ash could really do something like that, then turns to go knock on the door. She still wants to talk to him.

The door opens before she gets there. It's Ash's father, and Misty jumps and instinctively presses her back to the wood pile to hide, but it's not tall enough. She crouches hugging her knees, hoping he didn't see her. She notices the hem of her cape sticking out and pulls it closer, scrunching it in her lap.

She tries to watch him through the wood, holding her breath and thinking about the bruises on Ash's back. Suddenly she remembers her basket. She looks at her lap, then at the ground near her feet, but it's not there. When she looks up she sees it on the snow near the stump. She'd have to leave her hiding to get it back, and then he'd see her for sure. She sinks her teeth into her lip and prays he won't look that way, won't notice it there.

She dares to peek through the wood again. Ash's father is holding a bundle of something in his arms. It looks like clothes, but she can't see very well, and so she raises her head just a little, grasping a branch sticking out of the pile.

She jumps when she sees the blood stains on the cloth. The branch breaks under her fingers with a sudden crunch.

"Huh?"

Out of the corner of her eye, as she quickly curls back up behind the pile, she sees him turn in her direction. She draws her knees closer to her chest and presses her body to the wood until the rough edges bite her skin through her clothes. For a few moments there's silence. Then she hears footsteps on the snow.

She hides her face against her knees.

The footsteps draw closer, cautious. Misty looks up again, just a little. She sees heavy boots and trousers rolled up around thick shins.

The boots stop right next to her basket.

She closes her eyes, holding her breath in her chest. Silence again. Then a hand reaches out behind the wood pile and seizes her arm, pulling her to her feet.

"What the hell were you doing there?" Ash's father growls. Misty tries to free herself from his grasp and his finger claw deeper into her skin. He shakes her and her back hits the wood, hard enough to hurt.

"I asked," he hisses, shaking her harder with every word, "what the hell - were you doing - there."

"I'm sorry," she manages to gasp. "I just… wanted to see Ash, I'm sorry!"

He studies her. His eyes have the same color as Ash's, but that's where the likeness ends: Ash's eyes could never be so hard or unfeeling. The man clasps her arm tighter and a half-cry escapes her throat before she can clench her teeth to stop it.

"And why were you hiding there like a thief? Are you afraid of me maybe?"

Somewhere at the bottom of her mind, and only there, she thinks _Ash, please come help me_. As if he somehow read her thoughts his father pushes her back behind the pile. It's still not tall enough to hide either of them, but from there she can't see the window, and so Ash probably won't see her either if he's inside the house. Her heart races a bit faster.

"Let me go," she says. Her voice shakes a little. "Please, I didn't do anything. I was just…" and then she stops, because she doesn't know how to justify herself. He pins her to the pile. He's not holding the blood-stained clothes anymore, she realizes; he must have gotten rid of them before he leaned over to pull her out of her hiding.

"What did you see?" he wants to know. For a moment she can't understand. Then she thinks of the blood again, and only then it really clicks together with what she saw in the town square. Her eyes widen.

"Nothing," she tries saying; "I didn't see any— " and he shakes her again, slamming her against the wood so hard that air escapes from her lungs.

"Liar," he growls. Misty shakes her head. Then breathes in sharply, almost jumping.

"It's you," she whispers, before she can stop herself. "You're the wolf."

For a moment he just looks at her, taken aback. Then his hand suddenly closes around her throat, his fingers digging deep into her flesh.

"Tell anyone about it, even just _think_ about telling anyone about it, and I swear to God, I'll kill you," he assures her. "Do you understand?"

She tries to splutter a "yes" and only barely manages to. He watches her; his hand squeezes harder.

"And stay away from my son," he adds, leaning closer. "If I find out that you told him something, I swear I'll kill him before I kill you. Is that clear?"

She nods furiously. She tries to catch hold of the wood pile, her legs shaking, as his face goes blurry in front of her eyes. His hand keeps choking her for a few moments still; then lets go.

The wood scrapes her back as she falls, her chest burning, coughing and gasping for air. He grasps her arm again and pulls her back up, and presses a hand on her mouth to keep her from making any more noise.

"I hope it really is clear," he hisses. "I don't want to regret not having killed you sooner."

He takes the hand away to let her answer and she starts coughing again. "I won't tell anyone, I swear it," she promises, her voice shaky and hoarse. She realizes she's crying only when she blinks and tears spill on her cheeks. "Please don't— don't hurt Ash."

He doesn't say anything. His glance runs over her, head to toe. Misty tries to draw back, pressing her back to the pile; sharp branches push painfully against her back.

"You look a lot like your mother, did you know that…?"

She blinks. Did you kill her?, she wants to ask, but her voice won't come out. Her words are knotted in her burning throat. She lets out a gasp instead, when he slowly lays a hand on her side. She tries to scream and it only comes out as a croak. She turns away trying to shove him off her, but he holds her pinned down against the pile, his hand lingering on her side. Then his fingers curl, slowly gathering the fabric of her skirt in his palm to lift up the hem of her dress and uncover her legs. Something halfway between a "no" and a sob escapes Misty's chest.

The hand stops. Ash's father lets her skirt fall back down, then gets her out of his sight shoving her to the ground. Not sure her legs will hold her, she crawls away from him on her hands and knees, her breath hitching in her throat with every furious beat of her heart.

"Get lost," he growls. "Never come around here again."

Misty nods and dares to stand up. Her legs are shaking terribly; her knees nearly give. For a moment she thinks she'll fall back down, then clenches her fists and starts running, barely watching her steps.

She remembers her basket only when she's halfway home. She stops, leaning a hand against a wall because her legs still feel wobbly, and stupidly thinks to go back to get it because Ash might see it and realize she was there. She can't, of course, but now she can't quite find the strenght to start running again anymore either.

She leans her back against the wall and lets herself slid down until she's sitting on the snow, hugging her knees tight. She doesn't dare to move until she finally manages to stop trembling so hard.

—-

Lily asked her what happened when she walked back in as pale as a sheet. She stammered a "nothing", her voice barely a whisper, and climbed upstairs without answering when her sister kept asking.

Now it's afternoon and Lily went out somewhere, and Misty sits in the corner between her bed and the window and stares at the door, hoping that Ash didn't find her basket. That his father didn't forget about it and hid it somewhere, tore it to pieces or burned it; because if Ash comes to bring it back now she knows she won't be able to keep everything from him. He'll notice that something happened and won't take a "nothing" for an answer, and she's not sure she'll be able to hold back. Because he's in danger, and she has to warn him somehow, but she can't. If she tells him his father will kill him. She thinks of the bruises on his back, and the way his father grasped her throat, and she's sure he was speaking the truth.

Her neck hurts. She touches it and feels she can almost trace with her fingertips the shape of the bruises he left her, and tries to pull her hair over them to hide them. If her father notices he'll want to know what happened. She tries to think of an excuse, an explanation for those marks, but her mind is empty and she feels like crying. She clutches the fabric of her skirt.

Ash's father is the wolf.

She wants to run to him, take his hand and take him away, to hide somewhere where he won't find them. You're in danger, you idiot, if you stay here sooner or later he'll hurt you, really hurt you, not like those bruises on your back. If you stay here you'll die, he'll kill you like he killed my mother. My mother. Her breath hitches in her chest and a moment later she's really crying, and the sobs hurt her swollen throat. She presses her hands to her mouth trying to stop.

You look a lot like your mother, did you know that?, and his hand trying to pull up her skirt.

She shakes her head trying not to think about what that could have meant.

She can't see Ash anymore. His father would find out. She blinks and pictures him towering over Ash and tearing the axe from his hands, trapping him behind the wood pile with nowhere to run. She hears the blade dropping and jumps a little. She hugs her knees, shaking.

If Ash comes to look for her she'll pretend not to be home. But she already knows that she won't able to, not really. If she tells him he'll die and it will be her fault. But if she doesn't he'll still be in danger, and maybe he'll die anyway, and it'll still be her fault.

She bites her lip hard.

The next full moon is in ten days.

—-

Ash comes to look for her the next day. Misty is already sure it's him when she hears knocking on the door (she recognizes the way he does it, two knocks and then a third after a moment), but she still walks to the window on tiptoes to peek outside. Ash in in front of the door, holding her basket. She draws back, pressing her back to the wall and telling herself that maybe if she doesn't answer he'll go away, but Ash knocks again and then calls her name. Misty breathes in, her heart hammering, and finally walks to the door.

She only opens it a crack, leaning against it so he can't push it to come in. She looks down: "Hi," she says, nervously biting at her lip.

"Hey," Ash greets her. He lifts the basket. "I found this. I thought maybe you forgot it and I was going to give it back yesterday, but I didn't see you."

She whispers a "thank you", staring at her feet still. Even so she feels his puzzled glance.

"Everything alright?" he asks after a couple moments. Misty bites her lip harder, then nods.

"Yeah," she answers, and finally dares to look up. She takes the basket from his hand. "Thank you for bringing it back."

Ash frowns. "Did something happen?" he wants to know; she shakes her head.

"Everything's alright," she assures him. Unconvinced still, Ash looks at her carefully. His frown suddenly turns into a look of concern.

"What happened?" he asks, pointing at his neck. Misty's hand runs to cover the bruises, even if it's too late.

"Nothing," she says. She feels her eyes sting with tears and has to squeeze the words out of her chest to add: "Please leave now".

"I'm not going anywhere," he retorts. He tries to lay a hand on her shoulder and she draws back as if his fingers burned, hiding behind the door. Ash shakes his head, bewildered. "Hey, what's wrong? What happened?"

"Nothing!" she insists. She sniffles, realizing she sounds as far from believable as possible, but there's nothing else she can do. If she tells him the truth she'll have his blood on her hands.

If I find out that you told him something, I assure you, I'll kill him before I kill you.

"That's not true," Ash says. He looks at the hand covering her neck and tries to touch her again, but sees her pull back immediately and gives up. "Who did that to you?"

"No one did. I fell," she lies, looking down again. The wind from the door blows at her skirt. She thinks about all the times he told her it's nothing, I fell; it's nothing, I hit my face against the wood. All the times she believed him. All the time she called him a stupid for it. Ash doesn't believe her and shakes his head again.

"Those aren't bruises you can get by falling," he insists. "Come on, who did that?"

Misty presses her lips together. "It was nice of you to bring my basket back," she says, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "Now leave. Please."

She tries to close the door and he leans a hand against it. She pushes harder.

"Go away!" she insists. A sob escapes her chest, painful like a rip. She tries again to close the door and he grasps it by the edge. She'd have to crush his fingers against the doorframe. For a moment she's almost about to, but she can't bring herself to really do it.

"I'm not leaving until you tell me what happened," Ash says. Misty swallows and forces herself to look at him. She can barely make out his face, her eyes clouded with tears, but she tries not to blink so maybe he won't notice that she's crying.

"I can't tell you," she replies. Her voice cracks. "Please don't ask me why."

"But— "

"Please," she insists, and there's such a desperate rage in that single word that he really does shut up. He lets the door go, slowly, and looks at her.

Misty lowers her head again. "Please don't come looking for me again," she tells him, and slams the door shut before he can stop her again. He knocks again as she pushes the latch.

"Hey. Hey! Misty!"

"Go away!" she shouts. She leans her forehead against the wood, biting her lip hard. "Please. Just go away."

Ash keeps knocking. Misty turns around and sits on the floor, her back to the door, and presses her hands on her ears; but she can still hear him.

"Misty! Please open the door. Come on! What happened?!"

She hides her face against her knees and doesn't answer.

"Hey! I know you can hear me! C'mon, open the door! Want me to kick it down or something? I could do that!"

He hits the wood harder and for a moment she thinks he really will. Then he stops. There's silence for a few moments.

"Misty," he says in the end, his voice lower now. "Listen. Alright, I'll go away if that's what you want. But if I find out who hurt you I'll make them pay, you can be sure of that."

You wouldn't, she thinks. Not if you knew who it was.

She hears nothing else. After a while she thinks she heard footsteps on the snow, but it's hard to tell. Maybe it was just snow falling from the roof.

She curls up tighter around her knees, wishing she could disappear.


	7. Chapter 7

**7.**

She's sure Ash won't give up easily, and for the next two days she avoids stepping outside, because she's not all that sure she'd be able to keep lying if she were to meet him. She's expecting him to come back anyway and maybe threaten to kick the door down again or something equally stupid, but he doesn't, and even if she's relieved she can't help but feel somewhat disappointed too. She buries that feeling deep down in her chest, biting her lip until it hurts and telling herself it's better this way, and closes her fingers around the pebble she took from him when they were children. On the second night she falls asleep holding it in her fist.

On the third day Lily sends her to the market. Misty shakes her head, sighing.

"Can't you go yourself?"

"I'm busy here," Lily retorts, her hands covered in flour. "You're the one standing there twiddling your thumbs."

She's right, so Misty purses her lips and then sighs again, giving up. Her stomach crumpled in a tight ball, she puts on her shoes and her cape and takes the basket.

It's snowing a little. It had stopped for a while, and the snow on the sill had started to melt, but now there's more than ever. She puts on her hood, shivering a bit as her breath puffs white.

She walks to the market quickly, her head lowered, her hand grasping the handle of her basket a little too tightly. Once or twice she hears a voice that at first sounds like Ash's and freezes before realizing that it's not.

When she finally gets there she's almost managed to convince herself that she won't meet him: he's probably working, after all. She'd find him in his front yard if she took a slightly longer route on her way home. So she sighs and tries to calm down, looking at the stands and the people crowding around them, with heavy woolen capes on their shoulders and snow in their hair.

"Finally!"

Her blood runs cold. She turns, nearly holding her breath.

Ash is standing behind her, his arms crossed on his chest. He must have been there for a while, judging from the snow piling on his shoulders, but he smiles a little anyway: "I managed to find you, I've been around here for days hoping that sooner your later you'd come to buy something!"

Misty shakes her head. "I told you not look for me anymore," she replies, and tries to walk away. Ash runs after her and grasps her arm.

"Hey, no. Listen, I stood here freezing the whole afternoon and my father is furious because I'm not working enough. You owe me five minutes."

She turns to look at him again for a moment, then lowers her glance. "I didn't ask you to wait here," she retorts. She tries to say it sharply, as if she didn't care, but her voice trembles just a little.

"Well, I thought that if I came to your house you wouldn't open, so the only way to talk to you was to find you while you were already outside," he says with a shrug.

She should have expected it. She shakes her head one more time, looking at her feet. "Go home. Your father will be angry enough already."

"One more reason not to," he replies, puffing his cheeks. He's still holding her by the arm, not quite squeezing it but ready to. Maybe she could yank it free, shove him away hard enough to make him fall back in the snow and run away. "Well?"

"Well what?" But she knows already.

"You know what," he says in fact. "What's wrong? Why don't you want to see me anymore?"

Misty looks up. Ash's brown eyes stare back at her, worried and a bit hurt. She'll hurt him even more in a moment, and she breathes in, gathering the strength for one more lie.

"My father is giving my hand in marriage," she says, slowly. "That's it. That's why I didn't want to see you."

Ash's eyes widen, and it takes him a few moments to reply. His grasp on her arm shakes a little.

"What? To whom?"

"Doesn't matter," she whispers. She looks away again because she can't keep lying straight to his face. She can still tell she did hurt him.

He's silent for a moment. "Gary…?" he asks then, and the question trembles in the air between them, sounding somewhat like _not him, tell me it's not him_.

"No," she says. She hesitates, then adds: "No one you know".

She feels his eyes on her even without looking up.

"Who hurt you?"

She doesn't reply.

"The bruises," Ash insists. "Who did that to you?"

"No one," she says. He stares at her for a few moments still.

"…You're lying, aren't you?"

Misty clutches the handle of her basket, scraping her palm on the straw. "No."

"When are you getting married?"

"Doesn't matter."

"You're lying," Ash decides. "You're hiding something."

"I'm not hiding anything!" she insists. He doesn't give up.

"How did you get those bruises?"

"Doesn't matter," she repeats. She looks at him for a moment and her eyes burn with tears. "Please leave me alone. I already told you everything I could, I won't say anything else."

He shakes his head and frowns. "I just… want to know who hurt you," he says, his voice softer now, worried.

Misty sniffles a bit. She frees her arm from his grasp, as gently as she can. "Stop looking for me."

Ash doesn't reply. She blinks and a tear rolls on her cheek. She wipes it away with the back of her hand, trying to keep her voice from breaking. "Go home, don't make your father angry. Do what he says. And be careful, there's a full moon in less than a week."

He's silent for a little while, as if trying to grasp the meaning of her words. "Is this supposed to be a goodbye?" he asks then, frowning even more.

Misty lowers her head again and holds back a sob. She nods.

Ash says nothing. She looks back at him, and without stopping to think she leans over and kisses his cheek, near the corner of his lips.

"Never look for me again," she whispers. She hesitates for a second, close enough to feel him breathe, then adds "Be careful" and draws back. Before he can react and try to stop her she turns and runs away, squeezing through the crowd of the market.

She stops when she's out of breath, because now she's really crying and her chest hurts. She turns back, wiping her eyes: Ash didn't follow her. Maybe he tried and lost her in the crowd.

She breathes slowly, trying to calm down. It's better this way, she tells herself over and over; but the pain doesn't even begin to leave.

—-

On the following days she waits for the full moon.

She keeps trying to convince herself that she did everything she could to protect him; but at the same time she can't shake off the feeling that she abandoned him to danger. She presses the pebble against her palm, wondering if he's thinking about her too. Maybe he is. The pebble is as round as the moon, same shape, same color. Sitting on her bed she looks at the nearly complete circle in the sky.

Are you safe? Hide before it's full. Not in your house, far away, somewhere where he won't find you. She thinks about warning him; she stops with her hand already reaching for her cape. His father would kill them both. She looks at the moon again, the missing slice smaller now. She tries not to think about Ash; she helps Lily kneading bread and stares at her hands white with flour, forgetting about what she'd doing. She could be warning him right now, taking him away. Maybe if they ran now they'd manage to get far enough. "Are you there?" Lily calls her, rolling her eyes. She nods, and imagines Ash's father waiting for them, holding Ash's axe. She sees him lower the blade, blood spraying red on the snow. He turns to her: I warned you. Your turn now. Before he kills her he sticks his hands under her skirt.

Her vision gets blurry. She blinks trying not to cry. The bread dough is sticky and full of lumps, her stomach turns over. She won't eat any. Lily sighs and says give that to me, you have your head in the clouds today, what happened? "Nothing," she replies, and tries to tuck her thoughts in some corner of her mind, lock them in a drawer, let dust pile on them. She tucks the pebble in a pocket on the inside of her cape, not knowing why.

Would you believe me if I told you your father is the wolf? Would you think I've gone mad? Would you come away with me, if I asked you? I don't know where, somewhere far away from here. She wonders in the dark, looking at the closed window. She sees the moon when she closes her eyes. It's already full in her dream.

She wakes up thinking three days. Then two.

On the last day she thinks _tonight_, and her hands shake as she gets dressed. She keeps thinking about Ash under the same roof as the wolf. She sits on the edge of her chair, doesn't listen when Lily talks to her. What if Ash finds out anyway? What if he notices, if he sees his father turning into the wolf?

"Lily…" she starts after a while, pulling at her fingers. "What would you do if you knew you had to stay away from someone, for their good, but at the same time you knew that they're in danger and you were the only one that could warn them?" Lily thinks about it for a moment, then shrugs: "I don't get it. What are you talking about?".

It's almost evening. Misty looks out of the window. Don't do it, she thinks, and at the same time: go, quick, before it's too late.

She waits for Lily to turn away. Then takes her cape from the hook.

—-

As she runs towards his house, stumbling in the snow, she wonders what she'll do if he's not outside. If she knocks his father will see her. She clenches her fists and tries to run faster, her breath stuck in her chest, and suddenly a terrible thought hits her: maybe it's too late already. Maybe Ash found out something this morning, maybe his father noticed. Maybe he was strangling him behind the wood pile while she took the cake Lily made out of the oven, right as she burned the palm of her hand because her mind was elsewhere; maybe he was slitting his throat with his knife while she put on her coat and ran outside hearing her sister call, "where are you going?!".

But he's there. A relieved breath escapes her chest when he recognizes his silhouette, so sudden it's almost a sob. He hears her when she gets closer and looks up. His eyes widen, the axe nearly slipping from his grasp.

"Misty?"

On impulse, without thinking, she runs to him and throws her arms around him. Ash stands still, perplexed; and she holds him tight for a moment, feeling the warmth of his body under his cold clothes, the bones under his skin. He's there, she's not too late. He lays a hand on her back, uncertain. "…Hey," he says. "Hey. What's wrong? What happened?"

She lets him go and shakes her head. There's light in the windows of his house. "Is your father home?"

"Yeah, he came back a while ago. Why?" he wants to know. Misty bites her lip, wondering if she'd have the time to explain him everything before he looks out of a window and sees her there; probably not. She takes his arm, closing shaky fingers around his wrist.

"Come with me," she says. She tries to pull him towards the street, picking up the axe he dropped when she hugged him with her other hand. She tugs at his arm, but he doesn't follow.

"Where are you going?"

She stops and turns to look at him. "Trust me. Please. I'll explain everything in a minute. You need to trust me for a while"

Ash shakes his head. "Can't you explain now? What's happening?"

"There's no time," she insists. "Please. It'll be too late if we don't leave right now."

"First you tell me you don't want to see me anymore and then you appear out of nowhere to take me… where? What's going on?"

"There's no time!" she says again. "Look, I'm sorry, I'll explain soon, but we _need_ to leave. Now."

He frowns still, but something in her words or the tone of her voice must have convinced him that it really is important. He sighs and says "alright", shrugging; and follows her when she nods and starts walking.

"So where are we going?"

She swallows. Her mouth is dry. "Out of the village," she says, without turning to look at him. "Into the woods."

He hesitates for a moment, his arm almost jerking away from her grasp. Trust me, she thinks. Please trust me.

"It's the wolf's night," he reminds her, as if she could have forgotten, but he doesn't stop and instead hurries his step a little to keep up with her. "You remember, right?"

"Yeah," she whispers. She tugs at his wrist again. "Come."

He follows her.

It's getting dark. She can't see the moon yet, but she will soon. She looks straight ahead as if keeping her eyes off the sky could somehow keep it from rising. Her heart is hammering in her temples; she can feel Ash's, too, beating fast under her fingers, and she tries to walk even faster to bring him somewhere safe, her other hand firmly grasping the axe. She remembers the hunter's word: a werewolf can only be killed by silver.

She stops for a moment when they're out of the village walls, the woods dark in front of them, and turns around to make sure no one is following them; when she doesn't see anyone she starts walking again. Her skirt gets caught in the branches, she keeps tripping on the hem. She turns back one more time: if she can still see the village then probably someone from the village can still see them. A branch scrapes her cheek, her skirt gets stuck again. She pulls it up, trying to hold it with the same hand that's holding the axe; she turns again. Ash looks at her, his eyebrows in a frown still.

"Are you going to tell me what's happening…?"

Misty nods. She bites her lip hesitating, trying to put her thoughts in order.

"Yeah. It was… ten days ago, when the hunter was killed," she starts, in a whisper. "I saw her body in the town square and I was going to come see you to ask you if you knew already, and well, also because I thought… for a moment I thought…"

She stops. Ash shrugs a bit. "What?"

"That maybe you did it," she says. She looks down. "Because just the day before I'd told you that she wanted to arrest me, and… I don't know. I shouldn't have thought it."

She's expecting him to retort that he'd never do anything like that, but he's silent for a moment and then says, his voice low: "I thought, well, when you told me that, I thought— I thought that I could kill her if she hurt you, but I didn't do it. It wasn't me."

"I know," she replies, and bites her lip harder. "Then when I got to your house, I saw… I saw your father walking out. He was holding some clothes and they had blood stains on them."

"What?"

"I tried to hide behind the wood pile. But he saw me, because I forgot the basket, you found it then, and he threatened me asking what I saw, and then… I thought that someone had just killed the hunter, and I thought about that blood on his clothes, and I asked…" she breathes in, "before I could shut my mouth I asked if he was the wolf. And he— "

She lets his arm go and brings her hand to her neck. The bruises are gone now, but Ash remembers them and looks at her with his eyes wide.

"My father did that…?"

Misty nods. "He threatened me," she says again. "He said that if I told anyone about it he'd kill me, and to stay away from you, because if I told you something he'd, he— he said he would kill you too."

"So that's why you were avoiding me?" he wants to know. She nods again.

Ash stops walking. When she turns back to ask what's wrong he looks at her for a moment, then suddenly grasps her arms and pulls her closer, holding her tight. "You should have told me," he says shaking his head, his voice shaking a little. "I wouldn't have let him hurt you."

"…It's you I didn't want him to hurt, you idiot," she retorts after a couple seconds. She places her hands on his shoulders and frees herself from his hug, her cheeks burning a little; then swallows and looks away: "Your father is the wolf, Ash."

He doesn't say anything. His teeth sink into his lip; then he takes the axe from her hand, grabs her wrist and starts walking, fast, pulling her with him.

"Let's go. We should still have some time before the moon rises, maybe if we get far enough he won't find us."

She hurries her steps, holding her skirt with her other hand. "I thought you wouldn't believe me."

"Why wouldn't I believe you?"

"I don't know. Because it's your father."

Ash turns to look at her for a moment. "Trust me, I'd much rather believe you than someone that regularly beats the crap out of me," he cuts short. "C'mon, let's go."

She does her best to keep up with his pace without continuously tripping on her skirt. The hand she's holding it with trembles slightly. "He killed my mother," she whispers, and Ash's hand clasps hers tighter for a moment.

"Why would he?"

"I don't know," she says; but she remembers his hand on her ways, his fingers pulling up her dress, and thinks maybe I do.

He doesn't say anything.

It's hard to see where they're going. The sky is black, and in the woods the night is darker than in the village, where some fire or candle is always burning. Snowy branches keep hitting her in the face and pulling at her dress and her hair. She scrapes her shin against something and an "ow" slips through her clenched teeth. Ash turns back: "Did you get hurt?". She shakes her head.

"Just hit something. Go on."

He's about to when the voice halts them.

"I don't think you'll be going anywhere."

They both spin around and Ash pulls her closer, wrapping an arm around her waist. With the other hand he raises the axe. Standing about thirty feet from them, his father looks at him and laughs.

"What are you going to do with that?"

"Don't come any closer," Ash threatens. He tries to sound determined, as if he could scare him, but his voice is shaking.

His father's lips curl in a grin, showing white teeth. "Or else?" he scoffs. Misty looks at the sky: she still can't see the moon. Ash takes a step forward and shoves her behind him, spreading his arms to protect her. Even holding the axe he looks defenseless and small, a boy defying a monster. His father could crush him under his boots in a moment.

The man glares at her. "I bet your little friend here already told you everything," he hisses. "And to think I warned her. I hope she'll remember it and regret not keeping her mouth shut when I'll kill you."

"Leave him alone," Misty cries out. His grin widens.

"I would have, if only you'd stayed away," he says. He walks closer and Misty grasps Ash's shoulder, trying to pull him back. He's trembling under her hand, his muscles as tense as ropes under his skin, but he stares straight back at his father, holding his head high.

"Stay away from her," he growls. "Don't you dare come any closer!"

"And who's gonna stop me? You?" his father laughs. "With that?"

Ash doesn't retort. He draws back slightly when he takes another step forward, she can feel it because she's still clutching his shoulder. Maybe he's even more terrified than she is. The sky above them is still black. She swallows and then takes a sharp breath, her heart racing in her chest, her eyes burning.

"Why did you kill my mother?"

Ash's father looks at her again. "I couldn't avoid it," he sighs, with an anguish that would probably sound more believable if he stopped grinning. "She knew everything."

She still can't understand. "Why?" she insists. She thinks of his hand on her waist: you look a lot like your mother, did you know that?

"I thought you got it by now," he says, watching her. "I always wanted her. For years I did everything I could to have her. And that night finally I told her my secret. I could have turned her into a wolf and left with her, given her a new life… and yet that foolish woman wanted to go back to her pathetic old one. She didn't leave me any choice."

Tears spill on her cheeks as soon as she blinks. She can't say anything.

"But you look a lot like her," he goes on. His voice is hoarse, slithery. His eyes don't let her go for a moment as he walks closer. "Maybe I'll have some fun with you, before I kill you."

"Misty, run," Ash tells her. The hand holding the axe trembles badly. "Quick! Maybe I'll keep him busy long enough!"

She shakes her head, her hair flying on her face. She tries to say no and her voice is lost under his father's laugh, harsh, almost beastly.

Her eyes run to the sky. Behind him she sees the full moon.

The man's back arches suddenly. Ash jumps and draws back as his laughter becomes a scream and then a growl. In front of their eyes his father's body swells and bends out of shape: his chest grows wider, his jaw sticks out crowded with teeth sharp as knives, his hands turned to claws tear apart clothes and skin. The beast breaks free from its human disguise. Its spine just out between its shoulder blades, its shoulders stoop down, its eyes recede small and blood-shot into its skull. In front of them is a misshapen enormous thing, shaggy black fur and quivering nostrils. Its tongue runs over its fangs, dripping drool on its snout. The wolf throws its head back, and howls.

"Stay away!" Ash shouts. He holds the axe with both hands, almost clinging to it. The wolf arches its back and jumps forward, it's on him in a blink. It tears the axe from his hands and throws it away, crushing the handle to shreds between its teeth. Misty screams, pressing her back against a tree.

Ash falls under the beast's weight. Its claws dig red marks into the flesh of his cheek. She screams again and desperately looks around, looking for something to strike it with, something she could use as a weapon. A branch, a stone, anything. She feels the pebble in her pocket, the one she took from Ash years ago, when he was trying to make them jump on the water of the river. She grasps it as Ash groans in pain; it's small, it fits in her palm, it probably won't do anything at all, but still she takes aim and throws it towards the wolf with all of her strenght.

The pebble hits it between its yellow eyes, surely not even remotely hard enough to hurt it, but enough to distract it: the beast looks up growling and for a second seems to forget about Ash. He crawls away, without standing; he's bleeding from his cheek and from a shoulder. The wolf charges again.

Ash holds his wounded arm, his back against a tree.

Misty runs in front of him, spreading her arms. "Leave him alone!" she shouts, while behind her he screams "Misty, no!". "Stay away from him!"

The wolf jumps. Its feral smell slaps her across the face and for a second she sees it with extreme clarity, black bristly fur and bulging fangs in its open jaws. She shuts her eyes, waiting for its weight to crush her and take her breath away and its teeth to sink into her throat.

When neither thing happens she dares to open them again.

The wolf's body, halted halfway through its leap, arches and shakes with a growl that's almost a human cry. When it collapses to the ground Misty sees Gary behind it.

She blinks. Gary pulls the sword from the wolf's back and Misty suddenly recognizes it: it's J's silver sword, the blade stained red with blood.

She takes a step back, then another one, shaking.

The wolf writhes at her feet. Bloody spit pours from its open jaws. Gary raises the sword and lowers it again, piercing through its side; the beast's back arches one more time, its breath turned to a raspy hiss, then everything suddenly stops. The black shape lies still on the snow for a long handful of moments. Then it starts changing.

Misty watches as it shrinks and crumples on itself, until she's staring at Ash's father's lifeless body.

She looks at Gary. It takes her a moment to find her voice again.

"You…" she stammers, shaking her head. "…what…?"

"I saw you walk into the woods and I followed you," he says. He's out of breath, and his voice is trembling a little even if he's trying to look stoic and fearless. "Let's just say I overheard most of the conversation."

Misty nods towards the sword. "That's…?"

"It belonged to the hunter," he replies, shrugging. "I was the first to find her body that morning. She kept my money after all, I thougth this would make things even."

She blinks again and finds nothing to retort. She turns to look at Ash.

He's staring at his father's body, his face blank. His hand is still grasping his shoulder. Blood dripped between his fingers, soaking his sleeve down to his elbow.

As she watches him he looks up to Gary, suddenly, and says "Kill me."

Gary frowns. "Don't be stupid."

"Kill me," Ash insists. She sees his hand tremble. "He bit me. I'll become like him."

"No," she says. She walks to him and crouches on the snow, slowly. She takes his face in her hands and feels him jump a little, feels him shake. The scratches the wolf's claws left on his cheek look deep. Misty leans over and kisses him. She tastes blood on his lips.

"You're not like him," she whispers on his mouth. "You could never become like him."

"I'll turn into a wolf," Ash says. A sob shakes his shoulders. She strokes his cheek.

"We'll find a way," she promises. "Something to keep you from hurting anyone. There has to be some way."

Ash sobs harder and she hugs him. She holds him tight: "You won't hurt anyone. I won't let it happen. I promise."

She doesn't know how, not yet, but it doesn't matter. She'll find the way. When Ash manages to start breathing normally again she turns back to Gary: "Thank you."

"Had to be done," he says with a shrug.

Ash sniffles against her shoulder. Misty strokes his back, then gently frees him from her hug.

"We'll leave," she tells him. She thinks of her father and her sisters and her voice breaks, but she forces her lips into a smile. "We'll go somewhere far away, where no one will find us, so no one will know about what happened. We'll work it out. Alright?"

He starts saying something, then stops and bites his lip. "Alright," he whispers.

"It'll be fine. I promise," she assures him. She smiles again, even if it hurts to do so, then takes his wrist to pull his hand from the wound. "Let me see. Does it hurt?"

"It's nothing," Ash whispers. It's not true, of course; the marks left by the wolf's teeth keep bleeding. She hesitates; then rips a stripe of fabric from her red cape with her teeth and wraps it tight around his arm.

"Come," she says, when she'd done. She stands, brushing snow from her knees, and offers him her hand. "Let's go."

Ash looks at her hand for a few moments. Then nods, and closes his fingers around hers.

_**end**_

**A/N: **phew, I'm finally done translating this one as well! I know someone wished I wouldn't turn Ash into a wolf, but the whole story was already written and I didn't really want to change it, besides rewording some parts that didn't quite work. I hope it was still an enjoyable read, though.

Thanks everyone who read and reviewed, and particularly Ready to fly, who commented on every chapter and guessed who the wolf was from the start :D

_But wait, don't leave:_ the story is technically over, but there's a short "bonus" epilogue that wasn't originally supposed to be part of it. I wrote it more than a year later and it's about Ash and Misty dealing with Ash's curse. I'll post it this weekend.

Be careful on the next full moon~!


	8. Epilogue

(A/N: like I said, this wasn't originally supposed to be part of the story and was written more than a year later. I'm afraid it wasn't _extremely _thought out either; I just... suddenly felt I had a few more things left to say. Well, enjoy, and thanks for reading again!)

_**...Epilogue**_

Gary insisted she keep the hunter's silver sword. "You might need it," he said, and shrugged when she gave him a blank stare: "You never know."

"I'm not going to kill him," she retorted. He kept handing it to her, hilt first.

"Maybe you won't get to have a choice, carrot top."

I'll let him kill me then, she thought. But she took the sword anyway.

Then she felt guilty about having it, and the following night while Ash slept she started digging a hole in the ground to bury it. She broke three fingernails, and he woke up before she was done. "Don't," he said, grasping her wrist; and when she yanked it away and tried to finish what she'd started doing he got angry and said she had no idea what it was like, knowing that he could hurt her. She asked if he thought it'd be easier for her to _kill_ him and they ended up fighting about it the whole day. At some point she shouted in his face that she should have gone home and left him alone. "Go home then," he shouted back, and she said "Maybe I will", and they kept walking in silence, furious, looking away from each other.

Then that night she lay curled up on the cold ground, blowing on her fingers to try to keep them from freezing, and he sat down by her side. "I'm sorry," he grumbled. She waited the whole night before she turned and said: "I'm sorry too".

"You can still go home, you know," he told her, looking away. His wounded shoulder had bled through her makeshift bandage. She bit the inside of her cheek; then shook her head.

"I don't want to," she replied. "I mean, I do. But I'm also not leaving you alone so shut up."

He didn't shut up. She didn't listen, even if her eyes stung with tears every time he mentioned her father or her sisters.

She did keep the sword.

Now she closes her fingers around the hilt, biting her lip. Then lets it go.

"Leave when I start turning," Ash whispers. His voice shakes terribly. "In case…" he yanks at the chains she wrapped around a spur of rock. He made her pull them so tight that they've already left bruises on his arms. "You know, in case…"

"They won't break, alright?" she assures him. _Would these hold a big animal?_, she asked the merchant she bought them from, with two coins from the handful Gary slipped in her pocket before they left ("For the journey," he said, and refused to take them back)._ How big?_, the old man wanted to know. She thought of black bristly fur and sharp claws. _A bear_, she blurted out. He wanted to know what such a lovely young lady could want with a bear. _Just answer my question,_ she growled; _would these hold a big animal?_

"But _in case_," he insists. She sighs a little, even if she's not all that sure either.

"They won't break. They're sturdy enough."

Ash says nothing. He purses his lips and looks away, and she sees tears glistening a little in his eyes. "Do you think," he says after a handful of moments, and it takes him a bit to finally finish his question. "Do you think it'll hurt?"

"I don't know," she admits. He answers with a "mh" and draws his knees closer to his chest.

It'll be night soon.

"Maybe you should check the chains again," he says after a while. She shakes her head.

"I've already checked them twice."

"Well, just do it one more time, it won't hurt, will it?" he snaps; then sinks his teeth into his lip. "I just— want to be sure."

She stands with a sigh, and walks to him to give the chains another tentative jerk. Still wrapped tight. "You're good."

Ash doesn't reply. He looks towards the entrance of the cave, even if he's too far to see the sky from there. He's paler than a sheet. Maybe it won't happen, she tries to tell herself. Maybe the hunter was wrong or lying and it's not true that who gets bitten will become a wolf. But she listens to his breath getting sharper as it gets darker, and she goes back to where she was standing, out of reach.

Suddenly he stiffens and gasps. His back arches and he screams, and she grasps the hilt of the sword and takes a step back. She presses her lips together, her heart starting to race. He screams again.

She can't watch. She turns away while his body changes and cracks and his screams start to sound less like his voice (broken, trembling, but still his voice) and more like growls. When she looks up again there's a wolf where only a few moments before Ash was sitting. Blood-shot eyes stare at her for a second, its nostrils quivering and a low growl rising from its throat, then the beast stands on its rear legs and starts jerking at the chains, trying to break them. Misty presses her back against the cave wall. She clutches the swords tighter and draws it from her belt. The chains won't break, she tells herself, but she holds it in front of herself still. The silver blade catches the moonlight, shining white.

The chains won't break.

For the rest of the night the wolf howls and growls and tries to break free. Misty holds the sword until her hands and her arms tremble with the effort as the chains rattle, her heart hammering in her temples, and wonders if she'd be able to do it. If she'd strike to defend herself, should

_(Ash)_

the wolf really break free.

It's just one night, she thinks. It'll be over soon.

It's just one night.

—-

At dawn she kneels next to his curled up shape and frees him from the chains. They left purple-black marks on his arms.

She takes off her cape and lays it gently over him. He groans a little, then opens his eyes and blinks a few times, looking at her in confusion. Misty forces her lips into a smile. "Hi," she says, stroking his shoulder.

"Misty," he whispers. His voice is hoarse as if he'd screamed for hours, which is true, she guesses, in a way. He sits up, holding her cape tight around himself, and looks at nothing for a few moments.

"It hurts," he says in the end. His words tremble a little. "I thought I would die."

"Well, looks like you didn't," she replies. "Does it still hurt now?"

He shakes his head. "Just my arms, a bit." He raises a hand to rub one of his bruises, then bites his lip. "Do you think… it's always going to be like this…?"

"I don't know," she whispers. Ash looks at her.

"You're fine, right? I didn't hurt you…?"

"You didn't," she assures him. Then adds: "Come here."

Ash lets her hug him. She holds him tight, burying her face in his hair, until she's sure he's really there again.

—-

He has nightmares often. He screams and jerks away from her touch at night, and trying to smother his terrors with hugs or kisses does nothing.

He's gotten thinner since they left. She built a fishing rod, and she knows something about plants from her mother, about which ones are good to eat and how to tell them apart from the bad ones, but when he wakes up from one of his nightmares he refuses to eat. He says he isn't hungry, and his bones seem to jut out a bit more every day.

"What do you dream about?" she asks him one evening.

Ash gives her a surprised look for a moment, then turns away. "I don't dream."

"I know you do. I can hear you."

"Can't remember," he says, but he does it too quickly and his teeth sink into his lip, and she's sure he's lying. She looks at the stars in the sky.

"I have nightmares too," she tells him. "Sometimes about your father. And sometimes about my mother. You know— the day I found her. Or sometimes the dream is the same, only instead of her it's one of my sisters. Or you. And in the dream I know it's all my fault, because I left, or because I didn't do all I could to warn you all."

He says nothing. Misty turns to look at him.

"Your turn now. What do you dream about?"

He bites his lip harder. "That I hurt you," he says finally, his eyes glued to the ground. "That I turn, and then when I'm myself again I look at you and you're— "

He can't say it, but she pictures it quite clearly anyway. A shudder runs down her spine. "It's not gonna happen," she assures him though. He doesn't reply.

His stomach grumbles. She gives him a look.

"Eat something."

"I'm not hungry," he insists.

"Liar."

He pulls his knees closer to his chest, curling up around them. "I'm just not hungry, alright? I just… keep thinking about that and I feel sick."

She finds nothing to retort. Ash looks at her.

"You should go home," he says; she frowns.

"And leave you here to do what, starve yourself to death?"

"You just said it. You feel bad because you left," he insists. "So go home. At least I'll know I won't hurt you."

"You're not going to hurt me. That's what the chains are for," she says. "And I'm not leaving. Yeah, I feel terrible about that. Of course I do. But you're even more stupid than I thought if you think I'd feel better if I left you here alone."

He bites his lip again, hard. "But at least you'd be safe."

"But you wouldn't," she retorts. He hugs his knees and says nothing.

—-

The chains hold him for three moons. On the fourth they snap loose.

Misty presses her back to the rock, her heart jumping in her throat, her hands shaking around the hilt of the sword. This is it. Either she kills him or dies. There's no time to run, no time to do anything else.

It's just kill him or die.

The wolf that was Ash leaps towards her, growling, its fangs bared. She almost does it, almost strikes, but at the very last moment her will fails her. She can't. The hilt slips from her fingers, the silver blade clattering against the rock. She can't— _couldn't_. She shuts her eyes and holds her breath, waiting for sharp teeth and claws to sink into her flesh and tear her to pieces.

But nothing comes, and after a handful of moments she dares to crack them open again. The wolf sniffs at the hem of her dress, studying her. When it looks up she sees that its eyes are the same brown as before.

She takes in a trembling breath, slowly. The wolf watches her for a few moments still, then recoils a little and she draws back with a half-cry, sure it's about to jump at her throat. But the wolf doesn't. It crouches down instead, and for the rest of the night its brown eyes—Ash's eyes—keep watch on her. She doesn't dare to move a muscle the whole time, barely breathing. It's the longer night of her life. Her legs feel numb come the morning, and her back hurts, but she's alive still. The wolf is still watching her, its breath raspy and low.

When its body starts changing and twisting on itself to turns into Ash's again she stoops down, her knees wobbly, and covers him with the cape she kept folded by her side because it's spring now and it's too hot to wear it. She brushes his hair away from his forehead with trembling fingers, and he frowns a little and then opens his eyes again.

He gives her a confused stare, then realizes he's not where he's supposed to be and sits up with a gasp. "Did I—?" he stammers, and looks at her and then at the broken chains. "What…?"

"It's alright," she assures him. He shakes his head furiously.

"What am I doing here?"

She bites her lip. "The chains broke."

He holds his breath, his eyes wide with terror, and draws away from her. She lays her hands on his shoulders: "It's alright. Nothing bad happened."

"I— I didn't hurt you?"

She shakes her head. "I'm alive, aren't I? I thought you'd attack me, but you didn't. I think you recognized me."

Ash blinks. "I did?" he says, then shakes his head again. "You should have killed me. As soon as I broke free, you— you should have…"

"Well, that would have been kind of pointless, in hindsight," she retorts with a slight shrug. She tries to laugh, only managing a trembling croaking sound, then pulls him closer and hugs him tight. "It's alright. You didn't hurt me. See, I told you it wasn't going to happen."

He breathes out in a relieved gasp, almost a sob. She holds him for a moment still, then lets go. Her fingertips trace the scars on his shoulder, left by the teeth of the wolf that was his father.

"The next time I turn I want you to go away," he says, urgent. "If I break free again— "

"You could have killed me this time. Very easily. And yet you didn't," she interrupts him. "I think it's still you somewhere. I don't think you'd do it the next time either."

"You still need to tie me up," he insists. "And leave. And— "

She sighs. "Fine, we'll see if we can fix those chains somehow, we can do that. But I'm not leaving."

She gives him a quick kiss, then stands. Her knees are still trembling a little, but it's alright. Another moon has passed.

"Come on, now put some clothes on. We have another whole month to think about what we'll do next time, yeah? It's gonna be alright."


End file.
